Writing

CLICK HERE to view or download the full article (PDF) from Kindred Spirit magazine.

My SHEN Journey by Vijay Rana

My SHEN Journey began in my late twenties. I had reached a point in my life where I felt bad most of the time. I had a backlog of unprocessed pain resulting from a turbulent childhood and adolescence, and had tried numerous ways to change: workshops, books, positive thinking etc. None of these techniques worked. I finally made some progress when I read John Ruskan’s book ‘Emotional Clearing’. He talked of the need to not deny ‘negative’ emotions in the way much of the self help approaches seem to, but rather directly experience all your feelings. My understanding of self-transformation suddenly grew deeper; you have to feel your feelings in order to clear them. But Ruskan’s self-therapy approach of yoga positions and breathing/visualization techniques simply weren’t enough to open the emotional centres unassisted. I couldn’t attend to my blocked emotional pipes by myself – I needed an expert plumber, and that’s when SHEN came in. I came across another book that became the turning point on my healing journey: Richard Pavek’s Handbook of SHEN therapy. Richard’s explanation of biofield theory and the working dynamics of emotion seemed so convincing that I read the book cover to cover twice. I was now eager to try the work. I signed up for a workshop in 1998 and ventured up to Scotland to see the Jedi master himself.

Lying on the table for my first round of sessions was an interesting affair. When the flows passed through me the contracted muscles spasmed and I would twitch all over the place. Initially, work was mostly done at the solar plexus with anger being energetically released. Richard worked on me during some of these sessions and I recall him saying, “the heat being released here (solar plexus) is tremendous”. This made an impression on me - I didn’t need to express the anger or discharge it vigorously, it could also be processed in an energetic way. Another thing that’s stayed with me since the first workshop is the fact that so many people lying on the tables receiving treatment were having some form of reaction; from memories, physical movements and sensations, to full-on catharsis. It was certainly proof that SHEN really works! I went on to process more feelings, exchanging sessions with a colleague, and having intensives at workshops. Guilt at the kath, fear at the solar plexus, and loneliness at my heart were all washed through me as the fountains of feeling at each centre were unblocked by the power of SHEN.

After completing the main parts of the training, I was already beginning to notice the benefits of having emotionally ‘detoxed’. Previously my energy levels were always low due to suppression and I would get frequent sore throats. These symptoms completely vanished; having cleared my emotional blockages my energy was now flowing more freely. As my heart centre was more open I was now able to engage in a more whole bodied intimacy rather than just sexualising my needs. Relationships improved as I became more able to feel and express my feelings. My confidence also increased as I no longer felt stifled with a backlog of tears. I was a man who could finally cry - and I was happy about it!!

I went on to qualify in 2005 and now have a regular SHEN practice in central London.

I’m also a Focusing teacher and am training in Integral Counselling, Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing and Family Constellations. No matter what other approaches I’m involved with, my training has given me the ability to really hold the emotional pain of others. And by ‘holding’ them we literally do hold emotions - amazingly, right in the palms of our hands.

Emotional Integration: freedom from emotional pain

by Vijay Rana

(First published in the Oct-Dec 2007 issue of LONDON & SOUTH EAST CONNECTION magazine.)

Why do I feel so bad, and what can I do to change that? Ten years ago I asked myself this simple yet essential question, wondering what I could do to transform myself from feeling bad to feeling good. It was on a quest to de-mystify what emotions actually are that I came to discover SHEN therapy, and I now work in the field of what I call Emotional Integration. Essentially, the therapy works like an emotional detox. If blocked negative feelings are unfelt they get stuck in our bodies, causing negative emotional symptoms like depression, low self-esteem and anxiety, and can also contribute - in part - to physical disease.

Joanne* is an attractive 32 year old professional woman who came to me with continual feelings of low self-esteem and a heavy tightness in her chest. Close family members had died some years ago and she felt her grief was unexpressed. Joanne was also ‘cut off’ from herself and her intimate partner. She wondered how to release these stored-up feelings, as simply talking about them to friends or a counsellor had not helped.

Emotional detox

Over the course of Emotional Integration treatment, Joanne began to experience her blocked feelings. She finally allowed herself time to grieve, both during the sessions and in private time alone. After eight weekly one-hour treatments, Joanne was already feeling the benefits: “I’m feeling much better now, the tightness in my chest has cleared and I’m feeling more confident about myself too.” Her relationship also improved, as she now felt more connected to herself: “I’m able to express myself more clearly to my partner, and because I’m more in touch with my feelings I can tell him what I want from the relationship and be more open-hearted.”

When professional help is sought for what we think are ‘psychological’ problems but are in fact emotional blockages, the conventional solution is either drugs or a talking therapy such as counselling, or a combination of both. When these methods are ineffective, or short-lived, we are left wondering where we can turn. This was the same for Joanne and in many ways her case is typical.

Feeling bad is a natural part of being human, and avoiding feeling bad doesn’t do us much good. For a number of reasons such as habit, cultural attitudes, gender conditioning (‘boys don’t cry’) and just plain resistance to feeling, emotions are avoided and become blocked in our bodies. Continually experiencing repetitive negative feelings of anger, fear, anxiety, panic, grief or depression signals that something is out of balance with one’s emotional self.

A new paradigm

To explain how Emotional Integration works we need to take a huge leap from orthodox thinking, i.e. ‘it’s all in the mind’ to a new way of understanding, that emotions are ‘all in the body’. Emotions exist in something called the biofield, commonly referred to as an ‘energy field’. The biofield is an electro-magnetic field that surrounds and permeates our physical body. Specific emotions originate at energy centres which are at the bodily locations of the throat, heart, solar plexus, navel, and root (below the genitals). Our muscles involuntarily contract around the emotional centres, literally holding the feelings in our bodies. Opening up the centres enables the feelings to be released. Pioneering physicist Richard Pavek created SHEN (an acronym for Specific Healing Emotional Nexus) therapy in the late 1970s. He observed that the biofield responds to touch, and placing one’s hands around the energy centres facilitates their electro-magnetic currents and helps to open them up. With the proper long term, rigorous and highly controlled training anyone can do this kind of work - it is not the domain of ‘gifted’ healers working with divine energy or any other mysterious ideas. I’ve seen many ordinary people in workshops able to practice the therapy once they know the correct hand positions. Emotional Integration has a scientific application and can be repeated. It produces measured results.

Healing our past

As the centres open, emotions come to the surface and are experienced by the client. Felt through to completion, the feelings are cleared from the body. The method is safe and is gently paced for each client; during the treatment we naturally release only what we can manageably deal with. The number of sessions required varies depending on how the client responds to the therapy and what issues they bring.

The example of unresolved grief works well to illustrate that emotions need time to be felt through. In my own experience, I buried my grief and locked it away for 15 years only to have it resurface after the break-up of a relationship. I had sessions of SHEN therapy to help me go through and fully experience the grief, eventually restoring me to emotional balance. In previous years I also suffered from chronic fatigue with frequent sore throats. A constricted throat centre is like a cork in a bottle, blocking the expression and experience of our feelings. Having ‘detoxed’ using Emotional Integration, I no longer suffer those constant sore throats and my energy levels are excellent. These are just a few of the significant ways a cleared emotional body contributes to overall health.

Feeling alive again

Most people instinctively know that we need to experience our emotions in order to release them. When we feel through challenging feelings the end result is genuine freedom from emotional pain. Life becomes richer as we become more connected to both our positive and negative feelings. We can express who we are and relate to others in a more open and loving way, and negative patterns of behaviour cease to have an unconscious hold over us. A clearer emotional space within allows more joy, confidence and peace to arise, filling our lives with authentic happiness.

(*client’s name has been changed)