Energetic work: how hypnosis contributes

Did you know that I started doing reiki before I was doing hypnosis? Reiki is a form of energetic work. So working with energy is something close to my heart, and hypnosis can be a supporting factor in this. What exactly is this about? In this blog, I will elaborate on it.

What is energetic work?

In energetic work, you work with the idea that the body is a source of energy and that your body has a magnetic field. With reiki, accupuncture, breath work, smudging, reflex therapy, EFT (emotional freedom technique), yoga chakra work and the like[1].

Researchers indicate that energy can be thought of in multiple ways in energetic work. For example, you can think of working with the body's energy pathways, as in accupuncture, reiki, reflex therapy, chakra work and EFT. You can also work with energetic entities and the movement or flow of energy. This can involve the flow in the body or the flow of energy in your environment[2]. In the latter case, smudging again plays more of a role.

Energetic Medicine

For therapists who work energetically, it is important to have a good rapport with the client. After all, you are working with something that can mostly be felt and not seen. Therefore, hypnotic suggestions can play a role in reinforcing this feeling.

Working with energy strikes a newer worldview about the body that has emerged with quantum physics as explained by Einstein. The body is more than a machine that does all kinds of things, the body is also its own energy field that vibrates and it can vibrate in a right way and in a wrong way.

Of course, those vibes also depend on physical elements, but it also very often depends on your emotions and patterns in which you relate to yourself and other people. If you do this in an unhealthy way, you get unhealthy vibes and that makes you feel worse.

Being conscious about your feelings and being able to handle them well can make you less likely to get sick and live longer in health - according to this new view of how the body works.

With energetic work, you try to make the body and mind healthy so that the energy is "right" again. Reiki and all of the above forms of energetic work then help with this[3].

Reiki is originally part of QiGong; a Chinese spiritual and physical way of seeing, or discipline, that even has a martial-art section. Buddha was also someone who used the reiki way of healing and there are even those who believe that Jesus grew up in India and then went back to Jerusalem as an adult where he then got all the "miracles" done because he had knowledge of Reiki.

The name reiki comes from Japan, because someone there reinvented reiki and gave it its current name.

With reiki, you work not only with the energy of the body, but also with the energy in general. This is also called the universe or a god by some people. This is an inexhaustible source of energy that you can use to heal yourself and others. This involves physical, emotional, mental and spiritual healing.

With that emotional and mental side of healing, hypnosis can have a supportive role. For example, someone learning reiki or working with reiki repeats certain suggestions to get into the right mindset to allow healing to occur. These are suggestions such as:

• Today, I thank my many blessings.
• Today, I'm not worried.
• Today I am not angry.
• Today, I do my job honestly.
• Today I am kind to my neighbors and all living things.

In addition, there are stories in reiki that show that not judging is helpful because the flow of life does what it does and everything can come right precisely by not judging what is going right or wrong in life. By overreacting you can disrupt the flow, which in turn makes things not go right.

Is energetic work measurable?

Energetics sounds a bit floaty, but it is certainly measurable. Research on reiki shows that it can change blood levels. In addition, unhealthy blood pressure can normalize, regardless of whether the blood pressure was too high or too low.

Therapeutic touch, reiki and reflex therapy, is also measurable in the hemoglobin and symptoms of the majority of people who received this form of energetic work had fewer symptoms.

Therapeutic touch can also reduce anxiety .

Wound healing is also faster with therapeutic touch than without therapeutic touch (source 3, pp. 10, 11).

Smudging involves the use of certain plants and those fumes or vapors can in turn have health properties, such as anti-inflammatory or anxiety reducing effects[4].

Working Energetically with Children

Children and (young) adults also often benefit greatly from medicine without medication, such as with energetic work, to get rid of certain symptoms without the risk of side effects. This can include accupuncture, aromatherapy, biofeedback, cognitive behavioral therapy, EFT, hypnosis, mindfulness, placebos and suggestions. You can adapt these treatments according to age. For example, using metaphorical stories can improve the motivation of children and adolescents to try certain appointments and treatments.

In the process, EFT and some hypnosis techniques can be applied to small children, for example, while cognitive behavioral therapy cannot be used until a child is eight years old or older[5].

Energetic work can help children with all kinds of complaints. For example, it has been studied whether the combination of accupuncture and hypnosis can help children who suffer from chronic pain. In the study, the children received weekly accupuncture and 20 minutes of hypnotherapy. This, according to the children and parents, helped to reduce pain, in the process, children's anxiety about the act was also reduced[6].

Energetic soaking and hypnosis

As you can see, you can combine energetic work with hypnosis. Hypnosis is sometimes considered energetic work by itself, but you can also add hypnosis to treatments typical of energetic work.

There are also those who believe that energetic work works mainly because of the hypnotic suggestions spoken during energetic work[7]. This is similar to believing what a doctor says about your health and that this can help as a placebo effect or make the situation worse as in a nocebo effect.

Reiki can also be combined with aromatherapy, visualizations (such as during hypnotherapy) and meditation (source 3).

Accupuncture and hypnosis also help against pain, such as neck pain in adults[8].

Energetic hypnosis

There is also a transpersonal model of hypnotherapy. This is actually a type of energetic hypnosis. The idea is that people can affect each other remotely. If you change something in yourself, it affects those around you.

I noticed this myself when I did a family constellation and mentally prioritized my older children. Almost immediately my oldest son called me to have a chat, even though he had never done so before. I thought that was very special at the time and of course I was super happy about it.

For example, people always have some form of energy in a group. Your family has a certain energy, for example. But you also notice this at concerts, during religious settings, at a politician's rally and at sporting events. When the Netherlands plays soccer, for example, you suddenly feel more Dutch than usual.

Mesmer, one of the founders of hypnosis, also used this group energy. He called this "animal magnetism. This is the same as the Chinese idea of qui and the idea of prana in yoga. It is the idea of energy that people with energetic work also work with.

The idea is that you can ignite people with your emotion. You may notice that if someone is angry, you are more likely to get angry too. If someone is happy that can also ignite you. I think I lit my son with my love through the exercise I did.

The heart has the strongest magnetic field of any organ in our body. This magnetic field is said to ignite other magnetic fields, according to biomagnetism researchers. How your heart beats also depends on how you feel. This is measurable and is called heart coherence. It is better when you are in a positive state, in a positive emotion. So relaxation alone is not enough to improve your heart coherence, so you have to feel good as well. There are meditation techniques (and hypnosis techniques) to get this done. When people around you perform these techniques, it even affects your heart coherence even though you do nothing.

This is probably what you feel at a concert or at sporting events, especially if it's fun and if your team wins 😊.

So hypnosis allows you to do something to feel better, and that can be very contagious[9]. Group hypnosis and group meditation is also often popular for this reason, and I myself have found that changing something in yourself can also change something in other people.

So energetic work can be done with reiki, accupuncture, healing touch and with hypnosis. You can combine techniques of energetic work with hypnosis and hypnosis in itself can also do a lot energetically to change your feelings and problems.

Want to learn more about how hypnosis works? Then come to a free online master class.

Or sign up for a seminar or one of the hypnosis training courses to learn directly how hypnosis can make you feel better and how you can do the same for other people.

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