Strengthening the Family Field
Strengthening and maintaining a strong family field will help to sustain a healthy family dynamic. In this chapter, we will begin by looking at three things you can do to ensure that your family field stays strong. They include keeping your relationship to your family members honest, remaining a trustworthy ally, and maintaining open lines of communication. By enhancing your relationship to your family members in these three ways, you will be able to give them the timely support they need. And your partner and children will know that help is available whenever they need it.
However, most family members know that honesty, trustworthiness, and open lines of communication can be disrupted. That means that many parents find it difficult to provide their children with the support they need when they face challenges outside the home. And many partners with or without children find it difficult to trust one another and share intimacy. Fortunately, all three forms of support have their foundation in the subtle field. That means all three can be enhanced if necessary. To enhance honesty, trust, and communication, we’ve provided you with a series of exercises that has helped many of the families we’ve worked with.
You may remember that Jose and Monica consulted us in 2012. Jose had been a surfer for most of his life. But when arthritis prevented him from pursuing his sport, he became difficult to live with. It was during this difficult period in their relationship that Monica had an affair with a local businessman who had competed in surfing events with Jose. The affair continued until Monica realized that without ending it, she wouldn’t be able to re-establish the trust she needed to heal her relationship to Jose.
She told us about the affair in confidence because she feared that telling Jose might provoke him to leave her. It was only after she’d performed the following exercises regularly that she felt confident that she could tell Jose about what she had done.
We taught the same exercises to Stephen, Rosalie’s second husband. His two daughters Violet and Amanda, who were eleven and thirteen respectively, lived with their mother but spent the most weekends and holidays with their grandparents. Violet and Amanda resented Rosalie and blamed Stephen for abandoning them. As it turned out, the root of the problem wasn’t the divorce, although this aggravated the situation. The root was Stephen’s inability to share his feelings and emotions honestly with his children.
When parents have problems communicating with their children, it’s rarely due to a lack of interest or desire. Rather, the problem is caused by a lack of kidney chi (jing) and an inability to express emotions freely even after they’ve emerged. This was the root of Stephen’s problem with his daughters. His kidney chi had been blocked. But unlike Hanna, who didn’t have enough kidney chi to support her sexual relationship with her husband and who inadvertently began to draw energy from both her husband’s and daughter’s energy fields, Stephen accepted his lack of energy. Unfortunately, by doing that, he became rigid and withholding, which made it difficult for him to communicate honestly with Violet and Amanda. During our original examination of his subtle field, we discovered that, in addition to a lack of kidney chi, Stephen’s second and fifth chakras had been blocked. And without their support, emotional energy couldn’t reach the organs of expressions in his head where they could be expressed freely. These organs include the mouth, eyes, and facial musculature.
In the following pages, we’ve provided you with the same exercises that provided Monica the strength and trust she needed to tell Jose about her affair and that enabled Stephen to reopen honest lines of communication with Violet and Amanda.
By performing the following exercises regularly, you will enhance your ability to communicate honestly with your family members and become a trusted ally who will be able to give your family members the support they need when they need it most.
Issue—Enhancing Honesty
Like Monica, most people are dishonest at least some of the time to get out of an uncomfortable situation, to avoid a lengthy or embarrassing explanation, or to evade being wrong. However, being honest with your family members will become easy once you’ve enhanced your empathy for other people and your ability to express your feelings freely. To enhance your empathy, we’ve provided you with an exercise designed specifically for that purpose. It’s called the Enhanced Empathy Meditation.
You have three fields of empathy within your subtle field (see The Three Fields of Empathy, page 97). They’re resource fields that supply your chakras with energy. To enhance your empathy for your family members (and everyone else), you will fill these fields with prana and jing and radiate the excess energy and jing through your kwas, midriff, and armpit cavities (see Figure 2: Taoist Subtle Anatomy). By radiating the excess energy and jing though your kwas, midriff, and armpit cavities, expressing your true feelings will become easier and more satisfying.
Exercise: The Enhanced Empathy Meditation
To begin the exercise, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Close your eyes next and breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. Then count backward from five to one and from ten to one. Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to go to my personal healing space.” Then bring your awareness to your body, soul, and spirit. Enjoy your healing space for five minutes. Then assert, “It’s my intent to center myself in my personal field of empathy.” Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to center myself in my public field of empathy.” Then assert, “It’s my intent to center myself in my universal field of empathy.” Once you’re centered in your three fields of empathy, assert, “It’s my intent to fill my three fields of empathy with prana and jing.” Take five minutes to enjoy the process. Then assert, “It’s my intent to radiate the excess prana and jing from my three fields of empathy into my kwas, midriff cavities, and armpit cavities.” Take ten more minutes to perform the exercise. Then count from one to five. When you reach the number five, open your eyes and bring yourself out of the meditation. Repeat the exercise every day until you no longer have a problem being honest with your family members.
Issue—Enhancing Trust
To become a trustworthy ally, your children must sense that you trust yourself, and your partner must feel that you’re not hiding the truth from them. We’ve learned that when you lack trust and lie about something, you must divide yourself, which means that the whole truth can’t resonate through you. This split is something that most people, especially children, can feel. In addition, lying is always accompanied by a projection of distorted energy, which can impact the people you’re deceiving. This exacerbates the problem and can have unfortunate consequences, especially for children. To enhance your ability to trust yourself and the people you love, you can perform the Trust Mudra.
After that, you can overcome the fear of disclosing a difficult truth and the isolation it creates by filling your first and third chakra fields with prana and jing. The first chakra regulates security and insulates you from feelings of isolation and abandonment. The third chakra regulates belonging, trust, and comfort. By filling the first and third chakra fields with prana and jing, your sense of security, belonging, and trust in yourself and your family members will grow stronger, which will make communicating honestly with them much easier.
To perform the Trust Mudra, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Then bring your tongue to the top of your mouth and slide it back until the hard palate curls upward and softens. Once your tongue is in position, place the soles of your feet together. Then bring your thumbs together so that they’re touching from the tips to first joint. Bring your index fingers together so that they’re touching from the tips to first joint. Your thumbs will make a triangle; so will your index fingers. Bring the outside of your remaining three fingers together so that the corresponding fingers in both hands are touching each other from the first to second joint (see Figure 21: The Trust Mudra). Close your eyes and hold the mudra for ten minutes. Then release your fingers, open your eyes, and bring your tongue and feet back to their normal positions. Perform the exercise regularly until the trust you have in yourself and the people you love has been fully restored.
Exercise: The First and Third Chakra Meditation
To begin, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. Then count backward from five to one and from ten to one. Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to go to my personal healing space.” Then bring your awareness to your body, soul, and spirit. Enjoy your healing space for five minutes. Then assert, “It’s my intent to activate my first chakra.” Next, assert, “It’s my intent to center myself in my first chakra field.” Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to activate my third chakra.” Then assert, “It’s my intent to center myself in my third chakra field.” Take a few moments to experience the shift. Then assert, “It’s my intent to fill my first and third chakra fields with prana and jing.” Take ten more minutes to enjoy the exercise. Then count from one to five. When you reach the number five, open your eyes and bring yourself out of the meditation.
Issue—Enhancing Communication
The ability to communicate is far more complex than simply speaking and listening to the people in your family. Although these are important elements of communication—in a world that includes non-physical dimensions—communicating with your family members includes sharing your feelings and emotions honestly as well as consistently sharing prana and jing with them so that, on a deep level, they get all the love and support they need from you.
The following two exercises, which can overcome the issue, held special importance to Stephen, whose ability to communicate with his daughters on the subtle levels was severely limited. He used them to enhance his ability to communicate honestly and to share more prana and jing with his daughters, who felt that their father didn’t care about them. We also taught the same exercises to Alan and Serena. Alan needed to enhance his ability to communicate honestly with Dennis and Kevin as well as his wife Serena.
In the first exercise, you will enhance your kidney jing. In the second exercise, you will enhance the functions of your second and fifth chakras by filling both chakra fields with prana and jing—so that you can express yourself honestly with all your family members.
Exercise: The Jing Enhancement Technique
To perform this exercise, see page 124. Enjoy the process for ten minutes. Then count from one to five. When you reach the number five, open your eyes and bring yourself out of the meditation. Continue to perform the exercise every day for three weeks.
Exercise: The Second, Fifth, and
Thirteenth Chakra Fields Meditation
This exercise will help you communicate more honestly with your family members by enhancing your ability to express authentic joy more freely. The second chakra regulates physical joy, the fifth chakra regulates unconditional joy, and the thirteenth chakra (the sixth chakra above body space) regulates transcendental joy (see Figure 3: The Chakras in Body Space).
To begin the exercise, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Then breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to go to my personal healing space.” Then bring your awareness to your body, soul, and spirit. Enjoy your healing space for five minutes. Then assert, “It’s my intent to activate my second chakra.” Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to center myself in my second chakra field.” Take two to three minutes to enjoy the shift. Then assert, “It’s my intent to activate my fifth chakra.” Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to center myself in my fifth chakra field.” After two to three minutes, assert, “It’s my intent to activate my thirteenth chakra.” Then assert, “It’s my intent to center myself in my thirteenth chakra field.” Once you’re centered in your thirteenth chakra field, assert, “It’s my intent to turn my appropriate organs of perception inward on the levels of my second, fifth, and thirteenth chakras.” Take two to three minutes to enjoy the shift. Then assert, “It’s my intent to fill my second, fifth, and thirteenth chakra fields with prana and jing.” Take five minutes to fill your chakras with prana and jing. Then assert, “It’s my intent to radiate authentic emotional energy freely through my second, fifth, and thirteenth chakras.”
Take ten minutes more to enjoy the meditation. Then count from one to five. When you reach the number five, open your eyes and bring yourself out of the meditation. Continue to perform the meditation until you can share your feelings freely with your partner and children.
Stephen performed these two exercises regularly for three weeks. After the third week, he decided it was time to talk with his daughters. They agreed to meet with him in a café, a few days later. After performing the exercises, Stephen had enough space within himself to listen to his daughters with an open heart and to share how he felt with them. They talked for hours and, although Stephen learned that he’d missed out on many of the most satisfying elements of parenting, he couldn’t believe how joyful he felt by learning more about his daughters and what they had achieved.
Creating a Circle of Harmony
In 2014, Sandra consulted us. She and her husband Cecil were in their early forties. They had been unable to conceive a healthy child and had chosen to adopt. Their first child, David, was adopted when he was four months old—and, according to both Sandra and Cecil, their experience had been wonderful. David never developed any close friendships and when he was six, Sandra and Cecil decided to adopt a second child, who was a year younger. That’s when major problems began to disrupt the family dynamic. Their second child, Harvey, had spent most of his life in an orphanage. He’d been in foster care twice before the adoption—and each time he had been rejected after a short stay. Although the first few weeks were harmonious, it didn’t take long for the children to begin fighting and for Harvey to rebel against his adopted parents’ authority. The atmosphere continued to darken, and discord soon spread to the parents, who began to argue about who or what was to blame.
During our first session, we realized that the family dynamic had karmic roots that could not be ignored or neglected. Our research into the subtle field relationships indicated that the children had known each other in past lives and had unresolved conflicts that were once again interfering with their relationship.
We felt strongly that the reason the children were brought together again was to resolve their differences so that they could finally enjoy a healthy and productive relationship with each other and their parents. By observing the condition of the children’s subtle fields, we recognized that several karmic issues separated them and made it difficult for them to get along. The children didn’t share the same soul vibration, and Harvey was jealous of David because he had gotten what Harvey missed most—the affection of loving parents. To overcome the problems, we worked on the children’s karmic issues and their influence on the family dynamic.
But first, we taught Sandra, who was on the verge of burnout, to perform the Keep-It-Together Mudra. You will find the Keep-It-Together Mudra in the next chapter.
Sandra practiced the mudra every day, and, in our next session, she assured us that she was no longer stressed out.
Since her condition had improved, we explained that the next step in deep family healing was to create a subtle family environment which nourished both the children and parents. Only then could we begin to heal the specific karmic patterns that interfered with the individual family relationships.
Fortunately, we’d already developed a technique which we’d used in similar situations. We called it the Family Harmony Circle. It was a circle of unconditional love and understanding that family members created to nourish themselves and each other.
We’d already taught the technique to Alan and Serena and their two sons Dennis and Kevin, who continued to perform it regularly. The last time we heard from them, we were told that Alan had stopped judging Dennis and that he supported his son’s desire to study art and design in New York City.
The Family Harmony Circle is based on the principle that family members living in the same household create their own unique family field. The field surrounds each family member in the household and fills them with energy and jing. To use the family field to restore family relationships, you must first locate it and center yourself in it. To do that, each family member can perform the following exercise. It’s not necessary for family members to perform the exercise together. It’s only necessary for them to locate the field for themselves and center themselves within it.
Exercise: Locating the Family Field
To locate the family field, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Then close your eyes and breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to experience my personal family field.” Take two to three minutes to enjoy the process. Then assert, “It’s my intent to center my body, soul, and spirit in my family field.” Take ten more minutes to enjoy your personal family field. Then bring yourself out of the meditation by counting from one to five. When you reach the number five, open your eyes. You will feel wide awake, perfectly relaxed, and better than you did before.
We recommend that all members of the household practice the exercise several times before creating the Family Harmony Circle.
Exercise: The Family Harmony Circle
To create and later to enhance the family harmony circle, all family members in your household should sit together in a circle with their eyes closed. One family member can lead the meditation by having all family members breathe deeply through their noses for two to three minutes. The meditation leader should continue by having everyone assert, “It’s my intent to experience my personal family field.” After two to three minutes, everyone should continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to center my body, soul, and spirit in my personal family field.” Everyone should enjoy the experience for another two to three minutes. Then the meditation leader can continue by having everyone assert, “It’s my intent to fill my family field with prana and jing.” Everyone should enjoy the process for five minutes. Then they should assert, “It’s my intent to share the excess prana and jing, in my personal family field, with the members of my family harmony circle.” Everyone should enjoy the experience for ten more minutes. Then the meditation leader should have everyone count from one to five. When everyone has reached the number five, they can open their eyes and bring themselves out of the meditation.
After a more harmonious family field had been created, we taught Harvey to release the distorted fields of energy that he had projected at David. Then David and Harvey harmonized their soul vibrations.
In a follow-up session, Sandra discovered that her two adopted sons had been brothers in an earlier incarnation and that their conflict had been precipitated by their parents, who had sold Harvey to another family as an indentured servant.
To overcome the past life karmic issues, we released the attachment fields the brothers projected at one another when they were separated as well as the distorted fields that supported David’s guilt and Harvey’s resentment.