Healing Balance

I'm a big believer in energy and balance and using energy to create balance. I believe that thinking positively brings me closer to happiness. I believe that being around positive energy and people contributes to my own happiness. I believe that negative energy gets trapped in our bodies and unless given an escape route--massage, exercise, sex, hiking, softball, dancing, crying (to name a few)--that this negative energy manifests. Manifests into sore muscles and knots. Colds and flus. Maybe even cancers. That's what I believe.

Today was Day 1 of my Coaches Training. It was...an amazing and humbling experience. I think I could actually feel myself grow. In one workshop I was called on to coach someone while the other 20-some-odd people listened with intent to give feedback. I could feel the redness in my face, the tenseness of my muscles, and worse, I could hear myself flounder as the words began to form mid-air and make nearly no sense at all as they flew across the room. And I couldn't get them back. This is supposed to be your big calling, and you've buckled under pressure. That little voice in my head that keeps me from accomplishing all of my dreams started to stir. And then a funny thing happened. I told her to go away.

It felt odd. Strange. Out of the normal. Not right. Uncomfortable. I felt downright crazy for talking to myself in that moment, even if it was only in my head. For a moment I was afraid I'd spoken out loud. I looked around, and by that time, eyes were on the next would-be-coach. I took a deep breath, and as soon as they called for a break I bolted upright and headed for the bathroom to regain my composure. As I stood washing my hands, almost ready to go back into the fire pit, a woman approached me to tell me she liked where I was going with the questions I asked. She wanted to work with me on the next exercise. Huh. "Well sure", I said, all smiles. I might be able to do this...

I went back into the room and spoke to the woman I had a part in coaching. I thanked her for allowing me to be a part of her process. She smiled and leaned in for a hug. She made sure to lean her head to the right, so my head was over her left shoulder. I remember from a seminar of Dr. Wayne Dyer's that this has something to do with energy and the heart. And then she hugged me. This was no ordinary hug. She took long, deep, slow breaths in and let them out just the same. I could tell because two or three of my breaths equalled one of hers. And then it hit me: slow down. Absorb her energy.

She held tight to my frame and I began to release the tension in my neck. Next was the tension in my back. And arms. And chest. My breaths had become slow like hers, and I was nearly on pace with her, almost without trying. I could feel the tears rolling down my cheeks. I was in the middle of the "classroom" and no less than 15 people were in the room. And I had tears rolling down my cheeks, not caring who saw. This moment was for me, and not for them.

As we separated, I thanked her again, but this was for something different. I felt a shift, as she called it. A shift in my energy, from negative to positive. I don't mean to say that all of my negative energy was released, but I do mean to say that some of it was. I felt it actually leave my body. Through the hug, through my pores, through my tears. And that was enough release, enough energy, enough balance to get me through the rest of the night.