Overcoming Internal Threats to the Family
Yogic tradition teaches that ancestral poisons can disrupt a person’s well-being as well as their family relationships. In the Laws of Manu, an ancient Hindu text, we read,
“Individuals are also connected to the larger humanity through space; they are a part of the collectives of nation, race, tribe, religion, and suffer or prosper with the fortunes of those collectives. When a community or a nation sins and faces punishment—war, famine, disease, or an epidemic of drugs and crime—each of its members suffer as a consequence of belonging to that community, even though their personal lives may be blameless. We may call this collective sin, and it also helps to explain people’s unequal fortunes. Inherited sin, karma, and collective sin each give a partial explanation for the inequalities of the world within which the individual must find his way. If the punishment does not fall on the offender himself, it falls on his sons; if not on the sons, on his grandsons.” 16
The practice of Yoga is not the only spiritual tradition that makes that claim. In the Bible we read, “The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.” 17
In our research, we’ve learned that ancestral poisons exist as distorted fields on the subtle planes. These fields of subtle energy and consciousness travel through time and space and can trap children and grandchildren who were not involved in the original karmic activities in self-limiting patterns. Fortunately, poisons of the ancestors exist in a distinct and recognizable form—which means they can be released by an experienced practitioner.
Examples of patterns supported by ancestral poisons include depression, self-sabotage, dependency, greed, abusiveness, envy, jealousy, arrogance, and timidity as well as any self-limiting pattern that you and your children inherited from one of your parents. In order to free yourself and your family members from poisons of the ancestors, it’s essential that you locate and release them.
Solution: To overcome poisons of the ancestors for yourself and your loved ones, you must begin by locating the poisonous fields of energy and/or consciousness within the subtle field. Once you or another family member has located a poisonous field, which will look like a bundle of long tubes that intrude into the subtle field from behind, you can use the bliss box to release it. Since ancestral poisons can disrupt family dynamics, it’s important to release them from all family members that share the same family lineage as well as any other family members that have been influenced by them.
The importance of releasing poisons was illustrated by the Haldeman family, who lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The family’s patriarch had immigrated to the United States from Jordan in 1976. Subsequently, he brought his mother, father, and grandmother to the United States. He married an American woman and had three children. All of them lived together in a large two-family house. The poisons of the ancestors could be found in the children as well as their great-grandmother, grandparents, and parents. To heal the family dynamic and restore harmony in the home we taught the children’s parents, Abraham and Gloria (it was Gloria who consulted us first) to release them. To facilitate the process, we asked the remaining adult family members if they would participate in the healing process.
There was a long metaphysical tradition in Jordan. And after receiving a positive response, we taught the rest of the household to release the poisons that estranged the grandparents from their children and grandchildren.
Ancestral poisons had also created a gulf between Abraham’s parents (and grandmother) and his wife, who practiced a different version of Islam. They eventually agreed to participate in the healing process. And once we were satisfied that enough poisons had been released, we taught everyone in the household as well as Abraham’s parents and grandmother to perform the Family Harmony Circle so that they could find common ground with one another.
We didn’t hear from the Haldeman family for some time. But in 2016, Abraham contacted us and explained that the family harmony circle had worked wonders. Then he asked us if we would work with his grandmother who had been diagnosed with cancer and was desperate to overcome her resentments before she died. We agreed and met with her several times. In chapter eighteen, you will learn how she prepared herself for the afterlife by overcoming both her resentments and regrets.
To perform the Family Harmony Circle with your family members, see page 198. We recommend that you perform the exercise after you’ve released the poisons that were interfering with the well-being of your family.
Exercise:
Releasing Poisons of the Ancestors
To begin this exercise, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. Then choose a self-limiting pattern or blockage that your child shares with one of its natural parents. Keep it in mind. Then count backward from five to one and from ten to one. Use the Orgasmic Bliss Mudra to bring bliss into your conscious awareness (see Figure 9: The Orgasmic Bliss Mudra). Hold the mudra and assert, “It’s my intent to create a visual screen eight feet (two and a half meters) in front of me.” Once the screen appears, assert, “It’s my intent to visualize an image of (child’s name) on the screen in front of me.” Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to experience (see and feel) the poison of the ancestors that is the foundation of the self-limiting issue I have in mind.” The poisonous field will look like a bundle of long tubes that intrude into your child’s subtle field. As soon as the poisonous field appears, assert, “It’s my intent to surround the poisonous field I have in mind with a bliss box.” Then assert, “It’s my intent to fill the bliss box with bliss and release all the ancestral poisons in the form of fields within it.” Don’t do anything after that. The poisonous fields will be released automatically.
As soon as the ancestral poison has been released, your child will experience a sense of relief, which is often accompanied by a pop that indicates that the only thing that remains in the bliss box is bliss.
To continue, release the bliss mudra, the image of your child, and the visual screen. Then count from one to five. When you reach the number five, open your eyes and bring yourself out of the exercise. We recommend that you perform the exercise while your child sleeps. Then get feedback from them the next morning.
Since most children have inherited several poisonous fields from their ancestors, you may have to perform the same technique several times in order to release all the ancestral poisons in your child’s subtle field. Since most people inherited poisons of the ancestors when they were children, the process will be the same for adults.
Past Life Attachments
Past life attachments create patterns that can affect parents and children and interfere with a healthy family dynamic. That’s because they create “blind spots” that disrupt motivation, enthusiasm, and concentration. They can also make it difficult for a person to sleep peacefully and to express their authentic emotions freely. Blind spots that have become large enough can also occupy a significant amount of space on the subtle levels, making it difficult for a person under their influence to empathize with their family members and communicate freely.
The most common past life attachments are cords, attachment fields, and clinging fields. After examining Luca’s subtle field, it became clear that Rosie had projected several cords into his field on the dimensions regulated by his second and fourth chakras.
Cords are fields of dense energy with individual qualities that closely resemble long, thin tubes. The tubes are hollow, which means that distorted energy can be projected through them into another person’s subtle field. When a family suffers from a past life attachment in the form of a cord, they can remain attached to someone who is not incarnated but who still continues to influence them.
Attachment fields normally have a long, rectangular shape and will be extremely dense and sticky. It’s because of these qualities that an attachment field can easily penetrate a person’s energy field.
A person’s motive for projecting an attachment field will be to compel someone to bond with them in an unhealthy way.
An attachment field acts like a computer virus: it disrupts a person’s decision-making process by introducing powerful feelings and desires into his or her energy field. A person who is being influenced by one or more attachment fields will have difficulty remaining centered in their authentic mind. In addition, they will have difficulty feeling and expressing their normal functions of mind, including desire and will.18
Clinging fields are projected by people who feel compelled to hold on to another person. Once they’ve been projected, they will attach themselves to a surface boundary and hold on to it. In some cases, they can connect two people together for lifetimes. They are irregularly shaped but tend to spread out on the surface boundary as soon as they’ve attached themselves to it. Once they have attached themselves to a surface boundary, they must be released since they won’t normally let go on their own. Clinging fields can make it difficult for someone to sense the external world and to form or maintain an authentic identity.
Solution: Family members that suffer from the effects of blind spots created by past life attachments such as cords, attachment fields, and clinging fields can be healed using the techniques of deep family healing. The healing process has two parts. First you must determine if you or a family member suffers from a past life attachment. Then you can use the prana box to release it.
To release a past life attachment created by a cord, you must begin by choosing a negative emotion, feeling, or sensation that consistently influences your well-being but doesn’t appear to have a cause-and-effect relationship to what you are doing. Hate, jealousy, and envy are examples of emotions. Disappointment, fear, and resentment are examples of feelings. Pressure, exhaustion, and phantom pain are examples of sensations. These experiences are in fact fields of distorted energy that consistently interfere with your ability to share the universal qualities of prana (chi) with your family members. After you’ve made your choice, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Then close your eyes and breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. Count backward from five to one and from ten to one. Then assert, “It’s my intent to go to my personal healing space.” Continue by bringing your awareness to your body, soul, and spirit. Enjoy your healing space for five minutes. Then assert, “It’s my intent to become aware of the cord that is responsible for the (emotion, feeling, or sensation) I’ve chosen to release.” Take a moment to observe the cord. It will be long and thin and will extend outward from your energy field. After you’ve examined the cord, assert, “It’s my intent to surround the cord I have in mind with a prana box.” Then assert, “It’s my intent to fill the prana box with prana and to release the cord and its source and extensions.” As soon as the cord has been released, you will feel a shift in your energetic conditions. Pressure will diminish. And you will be able to share more prana freely with the people you love.
Once you’ve released the cord, release the prana box and the visual screen. Then take ten minutes to enjoy the effects. After ten minutes, count from one to five. When you reach the number five, open your eyes and bring yourself out of the exercise. Continue to perform the exercise until all the cords that attach you to the past have been released.
Exercise: Releasing Attachment Fields
In order to release an attachment field that traps you in the past, you will begin by choosing a desire, need, or obsession that compels you to do things that are self-limiting and antagonistic to healthy family relationships.
After you’ve made your choice, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Then close your eyes and breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. Count backward from five to one and from ten to one. Then assert, “It’s my intent to go to my personal healing space.” Continue by bringing your awareness to your body, soul, and spirit. Enjoy your healing space for five minutes. Then assert, “It’s my intent to become aware of the attachment field that I’ve chosen to release.” Take a moment to observe the attachment field. It will have a long, rectangular shape. And it will be heavy, sticky, and denser than the energy surrounding it. After you’ve examined the attachment field, assert, “It’s my intent to surround the attachment field I have in mind with a prana box.” Then assert, “It’s my intent to fill the prana box with prana and to release the attachment field and its source and extensions.” Don’t do anything after that. The attachment field will be released automatically. As soon as the attachment has been released, you will feel a shift in your energetic condition. Pressure will diminish. Prana will flow more freely and you will experience a renewed sense of freedom.
Once you’ve released the attachment field, release the prana box and the visual screen. Then take ten minutes to enjoy the effects. After ten minutes, count from one to five. When you reach the number five, open your eyes and bring yourself out of the exercise. Continue to perform the exercise until you’ve released all the attachment fields that limit your freedom.
Exercise: Releasing Clinging Fields
Clinging fields trap you inside yourself without enough space to express your feelings and shift your awareness from one point of your body space to another. In order to release a clinging field that traps you in the past, you must use your discernment to locate it. Clinging fields that connect you to the past will look like thick planks of wood or metal that intrude into the back of your subtle field. They will prevent you from feeling the area where they’re located and they will put pressure, create lumps, and cause muscle tension in your physical-material, physical, and/or etheric body.
To release a clinging field that connects you to the past, choose an area of your body that is hard, numb, or which prevents your mental attention from moving through it. Keep it in mind and find a comfortable position with your back straight. Then close your eyes next and breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. Count backward from five to one and from ten to one. Then assert, “It’s my intent to go to my personal healing space.” Continue by bringing your awareness to your body, soul, and spirit. Enjoy your healing space for five minutes. Then assert, “It’s my intent to become aware of the clinging field that I’ve chosen to release.” Once you can see or sense the clinging field, assert, “It’s my intent to surround the clinging field I have in mind with a prana box.” Then assert, “It’s my intent to fill the prana box with prana and to release the clinging field and its source and extensions.” Don’t do anything after that. The clinging field will be released automatically. As soon as the blockage has been released, you will feel a shift in your energetic condition. Pressure will diminish. Prana will flow more freely. And you will experience a renewed sense of freedom.
Once you’ve released the clinging field, release the prana box and the visual screen. Then take ten minutes to enjoy the effects. After ten minutes, count from one to five. When you reach the number five, open your eyes and bring yourself out of the exercise. Continue to perform the exercise until you’ve released all the clinging fields that have limited your personal freedom.
Issue: Rejection by Family Members
Children who are different in some way, who don’t meet the expectations of family members, or who are members of patchwork families can be rejected by one or more of their family members. This can disrupt self-esteem and create a longing for acceptance. In extreme cases, the child may internalize the feelings of rejection—and neglect their own needs or sabotage themselves in order to get the attention and validation they need. Rejection is not only an issue for children. Adults who were rejected or abandoned as children or who were mobbed and/or rejected as an adult can also suffer from symptoms that interfere with their family relationships.
Solution: Teach your child the Self-Acceptance Mudra and the Self-Esteem Mudra, or perform them yourself if you were rejected, abandoned, or mobbed. Perform the Self-Acceptance Mudra with your child in the morning and the Self-Esteem Mudra at night until you and/or your child overcome the longing for acceptance and the feelings of rejection.
Exercise: The Self-Acceptance Mudra
To perform the mudra, go to chapter eleven (see Figure 19: The Self-Acceptance Mudra).
Practice the mudra for ten minutes by yourself or with your child. Then release your fingers and bring your tongue and feet back to their normal position. By practicing the Self-Acceptance Mudra regularly on your own or with your child, you will be able to accept yourself as you are Now. That will bring you one step closer to overcoming the feelings associated with rejection and neglect.
Exercise: The Self-Esteem Mudra
Practice the mudra on your own or with your child regularly until your self-esteem has been restored (see Figure 16: The Self-Esteem Mudra).
Issue: Separation and Divorce
Separation and divorce can be traumatic for children of any age. It fosters feelings of abandonment, loss, and guilt that can continue to plague a child for years.
Judith Wallerstein was a psychologist and researcher who created a twenty-five-year study on the effects of divorce on the children involved. Interviewing them after eighteen months and then five, ten, fifteen, and twenty-five years after the divorce, she expected to find that they had bounced back. But what she found was dismaying: even twenty-five years after the divorce, these children continued to experience substantial expectations of failure, fear of loss, fear of change, and fear of conflict.
The children in Wallerstein’s study were especially challenged when they began to form their own romantic relationships. As Wallerstein explains, “Contrary to what we have long thought, the major impact of divorce does not occur during childhood or adolescence. Rather, it rises in adulthood as serious romantic relationships move center stage …” As Wallerstein put it, “The kids [in my study] had a hard time remembering the pre-divorce family … but what they remembered about the post-divorce years was their sense that they had indeed been abandoned by both parents and that their nightmare [of abandonment] had come true.” 19
Fortunately, the distorted fields that create feelings or abandonment and self-sabotage can be released. And as we’ve learned, divorce and estrangement from a loved one can be part of an ongoing karmic relationship that may have its roots in a past life. Therefore, by dealing effectively with the challenge divorce creates on the subtle level, a family member may be resolving a past-life conflict that has plagued them for more than one lifetime.
Solution: In order to overcome the negative feelings that divorce creates as well as to support the healthy expression of grief, which is an essential part of the healing process, we’ve included two techniques that will help a child or adult substitute longing for the absent parent into yearning for the divine masculine (“purusha”) and/or divine feminine (“prakriti”).
Our work with Sebrina illustrates how devastating a divorce can be for a grown child. Sebrina lived in Rome and contacted us through our publisher. She’d been married for two years and had become desperate because her husband, Philip—who was a musician—was often away for weeks on tour. Although she knew that he would be away from home regularly before she married him—and she was convinced that he would be true to her—she struggled with feelings of neglect and abandonment. Even when he was at home, she found it difficult to deal with these feelings. Within months of their marriage, she’d begun to nag him in an attempt to change his behavior. This led to fights and a breakdown of intimacy. It was only after she’d been propositioned by another man who’d promised to give her everything she needed that she consulted us.
During our first session, Sebrina told us that she often thought about leaving her husband. When we asked her why she hadn’t done it, she replied, “I was six when my parents were divorced, and I can’t leave him as long as I believe that my feelings have more to do with that event than anything my husband has done.”
The transition between five and seven years of age is critical for children. It’s the time when they reach out to the parent of the opposite sex for nourishment and look to them as a role model for their subsequent relationships.
When she began to work with us, Sebrina put her relationship decisions on hold. Then she contacted her biological father, whom she hadn’t spoken to in eight years, and told him how the divorce had affected her. Telling him the truth after so many years enhanced her determination to resolve the issue and save her marriage.
We examined the condition of her subtle field next—looking specifically at the attachments which continued to connect her to her father. We discovered several cords and attachment fields that her father had projected at her as well as several cords she had projected at him as a child. We taught her to release the cords and attachment fields her father had projected into her field first. She spent several weeks working through them. Then we had her release the cords she projected at him. These cords were concentrated in her first, third, and fifth chakra fields, precisely the fields that regulate security, trust, contentment, belonging, and joy.
Once the cords were released, we taught Sebrina to perform the Purusha Field Meditation, which she began to practice along with her husband. They practiced it together for two weeks, and she continued on her own for six more weeks. In her last meeting with us, she explained that the feelings of neglect and abandonment no longer disturbed her and that she and her husband had decided to start a family.
Although Sebrina was an adult when she began to work with us, the same feelings can afflict any child whose parents have separated or divorced. In the following text, we’ve included the Purusha Field Meditation as well as the Prakriti Field Meditation. The appropriate exercise will help both children and adults overcome the negative effects of separation and divorce.
Perform the Prakriti Field Meditation for two weeks with your child if the estranged parent is the child’s mother. Perform the Purusha Field Meditation with your child for two weeks if the estranged parent is the child’s father. After the first two weeks, your child can continue to perform the appropriate exercise on their own until longing for the estranged parent has been transformed into the yearning for the universal masculine or feminine.
Exercise: The Prakriti Field Meditation
To begin the Prakriti Field Meditation, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Close your eyes 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 prakriti field.” Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to turn my organs of perception inward in my prakriti field.” After a few moments, your orientation will shift, and you’ll become aware of a large cavity that interpenetrates your physical-material body. This cavity is the prakriti field. From your new vantage point—within the field of prakriti—you will become aware of the creative power of universal feminine energy. Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to fill my prakriti field with prana and jing.” Take fifteen minutes to enjoy the experience. 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 with your child until the longing for the estranged parent has been transformed into yearning for the divine feminine.
The more often your child practices the Prakriti Field Meditation, the greater the benefits will be—and the easier it will be for your child to overcome the negative effects of divorce.20
Exercise: The Purusha Field Meditation
To begin the Purusha Field Meditation, find a comfortable position with your back straight. Close your eyes and breathe deeply through your nose for two to three minutes. Then count backward from five to one and from ten to one. Perform the Orgasmic Bliss Mudra to bring bliss into your conscious awareness (see Figure 9: The Orgasmic Bliss Mudra). Hold the mudra while you assert, “It’s my intent to center myself in my purusha field.” Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to turn my organs of perception inward in my purusha field.” After a few moments, your orientation will shift, and you’ll become aware of a large cavity that interpenetrates your physical-material body. This cavity is the purusha field. From your new vantage point—within the purusha field—you will become aware of the profound sense of union and peace that are hallmarks of the field. Continue by asserting, “It’s my intent to fill my purusha field with bliss.” Take fifteen minutes to enjoy the experience. Then release the Orgasmic Bliss Mudra and 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 with your child until longing for the estranged parent has been transformed into yearning for the divine masculine.
The more often you practice the Purusha Field Meditation, the greater the benefits will be—and the easier it will be for your child to overcome the negative effects of divorce.
16. The Laws of Manu, 4.173.
17. The Bible, Numbers 14:18.
18. Sherwood, Sex and Transcendence, 33.
19. Judith S. Wallerstein, PhD, and Julia M. Lewis, PhD, “The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce—Report of a 25-Year Study,” Psychoanalytic Psychology 21, no. 3 (2004): 353–370. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.543.5504andrep=rep1andtype=pdf.
20. Sherwood and Wittmann, Energy Healing for Women, 126-127.