Life Energy Fundamentals

In July of 1984 I attended a conference outside of New York City on Organization Transformation.  During an open mic session, a short man with dark, curly hair got up an announced that he would be demonstrating his work with human energy systems.  Intrigued, I decided to attend.

His name was Jeff Krock.  Like a lot of people, Jeff had had heavy experience with drugs during the 60’s and 70’s.  These experiences had a lasting effect on him; Jeff was now able to see people’s energy.  Jeff could not only see energy, he could also see areas where energy was missing.  Jeff called these “holes.  In his session at the conference, Jeff demonstrated his work with one of his clients

As he worked, I could feel the energy in the room rising.  It was having a strange effect on me; I was getting groggy. I could not keep my eyes open.  I left the room to stay awake.  I went into another session where someone was talking about organization theory. It was lifeless.  I had gone from one room with more energy than I could handle into another room that seemed devoid of life itself.   I decided that too much was better than too little, and went back and re-joined Jeff.

Jeff’s purpose with the session was to tell us about a nation-wide, year-long training program for learning his techniques.  He called the program Life Energy Fundamentals.  When I learned that Jeff wanted to establish a group in the Bay Area, I was all in.  I spent 6 years with LEF and Elizabeth spent 5. 

LEF was very simple in the way that it worked.  It was astonishingly simple.   LEF was built on one simple premise:  energy follows attention.  If you put your attention on something in your body, your energy will go there as well.  Our body is a framework for both the physical form and also our energetic form.  If we put our attention in a specific part of our physical body, energy will be directed to this location.  By using our mind and focusing our attention, we can direct energy to any part of our body.

There is, however, a consequence to doing this. Each of us has established patterns of energy which have developed over our lifetime. In these patterns, there are “holes” where there is an absence of energy.  Holes are often the result of our not wanting to deal with painful emotional issues.  Blocked emotions and negative beliefs sap our energy.  This creates the “holes” in our energy body. 

When we move our energy around, we disrupt these established energetic patterns.  We bump up against negative beliefs and emotions associated with these patterns.  As we encounter resistance, we often bring into consciousness the negative beliefs associate with this resistance.  This is the pay-off; now we have the opportunity to address directly these limiting beliefs.

 Jeff called the places where we lack energy “holes” and these holes often leave a person weak and vulnerable.  Other people can energetically invade a hole and leave their own negative energy there.  This happens without our knowing it.  

If we hold negative thoughts about another person, or if we wish you could “get back” at another person, we are actually directing our own energy toward those people. If they have voids in their energy bodies, our energy can enter into those voids and sap them of their own strength. 

I learned this the hard way. At one point in my life my energy was dragging and I felt sluggish. An acquaintance offered to help me. Apparently, he too could see energy because he looked at my back and commented:  “well, no wonder you are tired; you have a dagger in your back.  Someone really has it out for you”.  In that moment, I knew exactly who he was talking about.   When he removed the dagger, I could literally feel something being dislodged from the middle of my back.  When it was out, I instantly felt more alive and vital.

If I had to sum it all up, I’d say that LEF taught me to feel my inner world.  

I had many learnings during my LEF years.  The most important experience occurred at a workshop in the Carribean.

LEF Caribbean Session

“Your body is very tight.  You need to get some deep tissue work done”.

Elizabeth and I were in the Caribbean attending a Life Energy Fundamentals workshop.  It was a gorgeous day and I had decided to get an outdoor massage.

I had just finished the massage and was feeling relaxed until I heard this pronouncement. Now I tensed up.

I was confused.  Over the last several years I had received over 25 hours of Rolfing, an intense, deep-tissue form of bodywork.  It involved applying pressure all over my body that felt a lot like the kneading of bread—and I was the bread.  At times it was very painful.  

Why was my body so tight right now?

When I returned to the house where we were staying, I mentioned my experience to one of our housemates.  She was a licensed specialist in Trager bodywork.  She asked if she could move my hand.  I held out and she started to rotate it like she was cranking a handle.

“Your body is very responsive to movement”, she said.   It is not tight.  But I think I know what is going on and if you would like, I could do some Trager bodywork with you which I think would be very helpful.   A short while later, I was lying on her massage table.

“I would like you to lie on your back”, she said. “I will begin with your feet and work up towards your head.  If at any time you feel too uncomfortable to continue, just say stop and I will immediately sit down on the bed and not move until you give me permission to continue.”

At this point I was thinking to myself:  Lady, I have been Rolfed 25 times and have felt so much pain that there is nothing you can do that could be worse than that.  Let’s just get on with it.  

She began.  Very gently she started to rotate my feet in circles. I am thinking:  what is so painful about this?  She continued to rotate my feet.

But as I lay there, a growing uneasiness started to come over me. This was not physical pain; it was something else.  At first it seemed like dread. I could feel my heart race.  My breathing was short and fast.  I was enveloped by fear.  But where was it coming from?

It got more intense. It was a generalized fear.  There was nothing specific that I was afraid of, but fear was all throughout my body.  And it got even more intense. 

 Now it became sheer terror.  I felt trapped by it. I panicked.

P……P…..P…..P….P…..P….PUHLEEZE SIT DOWN!

Good to her word, she immediately sat down. 

I lay there exhausted.  What was going on with me?  The fear subsided and I asked her to continue.  When she did, the fear came right back.

She moved from my feet to my ankles.  More fear.  From my ankles she went to my shins.  More fear.  From my shins she moved to my thighs.  Still more fear.

Waves of fear arose from my body and engulfed me.  Wave after wave after wave.  

Several more times I asked her to sit down while I collected myself.

She was not able to give me the full treatment.  Time ran out and I was exhausted. 

Somehow, I managed to climb off the table and made my way over to the bed. 

I slept for the next 24 hours.  

Back in the Bay Area, it took about 6 more sessions of Trager bodywork to complete the release of my unconscious fear.

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