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When I first walked into the Inner Focus Advanced
Energy Healing School in 1995, I was looking for
help. Past injuries were not healing well. I often
felt ungrounded and emotionally buffeted. I had
tried several different therapies and had been on
anti-depressants for a little while, but nothing
was “fixing the problem”.
At this time, I had a small legal practice which
specialized in sexual harassment and assault cases.
My work was time consuming, my clients were high
maintenance, and I was becoming an expert in handling
women who had post-traumatic stress. I effectively
and aggressively settled all my cases in an attempt
to help my clients heal and move on with their lives.
When the sexual harassment cases occurred in employment
situations, I became very skilled at finding common
ground between employer and employee.
And yet, I couldn’t find that win/win situation
for myself. Inner peace was elusive and fleeting
at best.
I was pregnant for the second time and knew, after
my first pregnancy, that I was high risk. My first
child had been 9 weeks premature and I was desperately
trying to prevent the trauma of a second premature
birth.
So there I was, in 1995, making a choice to try
something different, to try some of this energy
healing stuff. And I found a home and a way of being
for the next three and a half years. I found an
awareness that revealed itself as I peeled off layer
after layer of protections and defenses. And I was
(and still am) discovering ways to integrate energy
healing processes into my day to day life, both
personal and professional.
At first, I felt like I became different people.
While attending the energy healing school, it felt
safe to feel and receive. I felt my heart opening.
Physical and emotional pain was released. Support
was received and given.
Then I would go back to what I thought was the
“real” world, and having an open heart
would hurt. I would yell at one of my kids to clean
her room and feel nauseous. My husband and I would
feel very open and then get scared and retreat from
one another. I felt too emotionally vulnerable to
do litigation (which irritated me greatly) and hired
outside counsel to do some of the warrior-like things
that needed to be done on my remaining cases.
It was an emotional roller coaster. But somewhere,
deep down in my heart, I knew there was a way to
integrate all of this spiritual energy healing stuff
into my personal and professional life, with grace
and beauty.
In 1996, I was representing “Monica”
(a fake name) who had been harassed by and forced
to have oral sex with her boss. She had been assaulted
in many different ways and was exhibiting signs
of post-traumatic stress. I knew that Monica was
not strong enough to endure aggressive litigation
and called opposing counsel to see if a settlement
could be reached.
My call to opposing counsel did not go well. The
attorney naively thought that oral sex could never
be forced and could never be a basis for sexual
harassment. When I told him that oral sex was often
the sex of choice in sexual harassment cases, he
angrily refused to discuss the matter and hung up
the phone after stating that he would not consider
any settlement—ever.
I refused to believe what he said, however. Even
though opposing counsel had hung up on me, I sensed
that there was a part of him that did not want to
hurt my client. There was gentleness in his voice
that I could hear even when he was yelling. I was
determined to reach and contact that part of him...but
how could I proceed when opposing counsel had cut
off all settlement discussions?
It was then that I decided to try energy healing
techniques in this contentious litigation. I had
nothing to lose. Based on my experience in the energy
healing school, I knew that we all have energetic
“essences” or higher selves, which have
a consciousness far greater than that projected
by our personalities. I knew how to connect to my
own higher self and that of my energy healing clients.
So, I then reasoned that if I could do this during
individual healing sessions, then, theoretically,
I should be able to do this with opposing counsel.
And so I experimented. A few hours after opposing
counsel hung up the phone on me, I settled down
for a "session" with the higher self of
the contentious attorney. I connected to my higher
self. I asked my higher self to connect with the
higher self of opposing counsel and when I felt
a connection, and felt that it was okay to proceed,
I invoked the energy of truth and began to talk.
But, to my surprise, I did not talk like an attorney.
Instead of hiding my client's vulnerabilities, I
talked about how Monica would be harmed by litigation.
Instead of only talking about those aspects of Monica’s
case which were favorable to her, I talked about
everything that had happened and that Monica was
telling the truth. Instead of talking about all
the money my client could win, I talked about what
Monica needed monetarily in order to heal, to start
over and to find a new life. And I could feel the
higher self of opposing counsel listening. My higher
self continued to say whatever felt right at the
moment and when I was done, I expressed gratitude
and stopped the session.
Within a day or so of the session, I then received
a phone message on my answering machine from opposing
counsel on this case. Without hesitation, he asked
if we could still settle the case and requested
that I call him back. I was stunned. After blurting
out “Holy Sh…t!”, I immediately
proceeded to return his call. Within a short time,
we then settled Monica’s case for exactly
the amount of money I had asked him for—or
rather, I had intuitively asked his higher self
for—as a settlement.
I learned a valuable lesson that day. It doesn’t
matter what legal, emotional or physical barriers
are placed in your way. You can always communicate
with someone energetically. You can always invoke
truth and healing into any situation regardless
of the antics of opposing counsel, a judge or the
court.
From that point on I was hooked, excited, in disbelief
and a little bit scared of our power to affect “reality”.
I began to experiment with how I could apply energy
healing processes to my other legal cases. I began
to work at an energetic level on other cases for
different attorneys and litigants. I began to integrate
my spiritual being more consciously into my profession.
But this was not always an easy thing to do. Lawyers
are trained to see conflict as something on the
outside to fix, manipulate, resolve, litigate or
mediate. We lawyers want skills and training that
will teach us tactics and strategies that will be
beneficial for our clients, win cases and give us
a predictable profit.
However, energy healing and the deeper spiritual
quality of peacemaking are not necessarily skills
to learn. It is not a step-by-step tactic or thing
that you “do” to someone else. Instead,
it is more about going inside to connect with our
own internal wisdom and peace. Only when we can
tap into our own sense of peace can we really help
others find theirs.
So what does this mean in practical terms? Going
back to the Monica case—I am convinced that
my efforts at energy healing would not have been
as effective if I hadn’t first given myself
the gift of time for self-reflection and self-healing.
As I learned to see those parts of myself that were
wise and gentle, I could see those qualities in
opposing counsel. As I learned to listen to myself
and hear a gentle quality in my voice, I could hear
a peaceful quality in the voice of opposing counsel,
even when he was yelling at me over the phone. In
other words, true peacemaking started for me as
I looked within; and as those qualities became more
integrated into my own personal life, I found that
I could help manifest that peace in the outside
world. …even in the most conflicted of situations.
Today, as I continue on my path of self-reflection,
healing and peacemaking, does this mean that I now
live my life in a state of eternal bliss and happiness?
No. I am still trying to learn how to integrate
all this “energy healing stuff” into
my personal and professional life. I still get frustrated
and sometimes yell at my kids to clean their rooms.
My husband and I still go on emotional roller coaster
rides.
But then I have to laugh or cry at myself and go
on. Because I know that I will continue to give
myself that gift of self-reflection and healing.
I know and can tap into that place of peace inside
and experience it as very fluid, deep and vast.
And as peace washes over me like a river, I realize
that peace and peacemaking is not an end result,
but a lifetime process.
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