"anatomy Of The Spirit" And A Personal Experience., By Caroline Myss, PH.D. Options

I think this may be one of the first diatribes I have initiated on this particular forum. Usually for me books are mostly intellectual food-stuffs that really only serve to reiterate the same information in different ways - that is, I read mostly for comparison's sake and rarely discover anything drastically new in a book although sometimes it is helpful.

Well, recently I was in a position to be waiting for four hours while the 'Man' produced some vital paperwork for me at his own sweet leisure, and during that time I wandered into a bookstore and bought this book. I'm a massage therapist and have been expanding my knowledge base of various massage and healing modalities over the last year, especially now that I have a job as a medical therapist. So the alternative therapies section is usually where I go first these days, and this book was sticking halfway out of the shelf like someone had picked it up, decided against it, and then put it back only halfway. I believe in providence (the thing, not the place (IMG:style_emoticons/default/bigwink.gif) ) so I picked it up and gave it a read, and immediately felt I should read this book.

So I have and admittedly I'm only half-way through it as yet, but already it has helped me profoundly!

The basic premise of the book is that, as many of us already know, our health is tied into our energy system - when we have a lot of energy we're healthy and when it starts to get low or out of harmony our health declines until we manifest disease. What follows then is a detailed discussion along with case study examples, of exactly how different parts of the energy system are affected by and affect our physical, emotional, and spiritual health. There are about a hundred some odd books on this subject and I've read a bunch of them, but this is the first book I've read to take it in a direction that is immediately practical - you don't need months of meditation or complicated practices, you don't have to make major lifestyle changes to apply it (although during and after application such changes may be necessary pending an alteration of your paradigm), and it doesn't require any special gift or initiation to be useful. It does require an open and receptive mind, but not so much to the information presented as to one's own self and sense of rightness and harmony.

The theory in the book is presented based on a 'seven' system - Seven Chakras, Seven Christian Sacraments, and Ten Sephirot in a Seven Tier System (top down arrangement of the tree of life with three sets of sephirot paired together in three of the tiers.) This makes Myss' book unique among the many books on the subject of energetic health and healing that I have read, because she's drawing on her own collective experience studying and practicing with these systems. Her PH.D is in Theology, and although there is a very spiritual tone to her work at it's farthest extent, its is a very grounded and practical spirituality and not at all dogmatic in the sense of favoring one particular religious view. She mentions possible correlations with other religious traditions, but says up front that she doesn't have the experience practicing those traditions and so they aren't included in the book, but are worth investigating for the students of those traditions.

The first part of the book is the typical story aspect, where she discusses her own history and what brought about the writing of the book at hand. The Second part gets into the very basic foundations of her system and experience with it, discussing several tenants of self-healing and the basic energy body interactions that help or hinder our healing process. By the end of this part of the book, she has synthesized in brief these three systems and the essence of how they apply in terms of what she calls "seven sacred truths," which she holds to be in brief:

1. All is one.
2. Honor One Another.
3. Honor Oneself.
4. Love is Divine Power.
5. Surrender Personal Will to Divine Will.
6. Seek Only the Truth.
7. Live in the Present Moment.

Now, most of this is nothing new for, I suspect, the majority of the members of this forum, but the last section fo the book is where all of this is expounded in a way that makes immediate application easier than simply adhering to seven ambiguous tenants.

After this there is a chart discussing energetic anatomy in terms of various pathologies and their associations with emotional states, energy centers, and organs of the body, followed by individual chapters on each of the energy centers and their corresponding spiritual and practical elements. Myss discusses each center in terms of our personal experience in life, how we validate ourselves either internally or externally, how we form and maintain attachments to support ourselves energetically, and how to identify when these attachments are positive or negative. She discusses the development of medical intuition primarily on the basis of self-application rather than examination of others, suggesting throughout that although other therapies can and do help, and that western medicine is beneficial to treat symptoms and give us the temporary relief that can be necessary to focus on the deeper issues, ultimately healing is the hands of the individuals; she gives several cases throughout from her experience and that of her colleague Dr. Norm Shealy (a neurosrgeon who helped Myss explore a more medical education to apply in her own practice) that exemplify different attitudes towards healing and how it worked out for these people.

Now, up until this point the reader should take everything with a grain of Salt - after all, if it isn't applicable then who can say whether this individual is really successful with this philosophy and practice or just fabricating enough to sell the book? There's also a long running workshop program that people continue to return to, apparently, and which attracts newcomers every time, both healthy individuals who want to learn about medical intuition and 'symbolic sight' as Myss terms it, as well as individuals seeking their own path to personal healing. The other merit of this book which I mentioned above is that it's not just talk - there is immediate application available from the book itself, which can have immediately powerful results - at least, it did for me.

Now, as an energy worker I address almost all of my physical problems energetically - I never go to a doctor for diagnosis, I have never been seriously ill perhaps because I address any problems as they begin to manifest and make changes based on when I feel even a little bit fatigued or irritable, or experience any other sudden change in energy quality. So it's fair to say that I'm already waist deep in this philosophy already. However, I do have some problems which are recurring and have been for years now, which I usually address by centering and moving energy into the areas I have problems with - bowel pain and chest pains. They go away after a few minutes of meditation and I always hope they finally are gone, but I know somehow each time that they'll come back. I clear my energy 'manually' on a regular basis and over the past couple of years in particular have started addressing my energy in terms of my lifestyle as well as strictly energy anatomy. Yet, I still have these problems.

I had read through the first couple of chapters in the third section of the book, and it was sometime after this that my lower abdomen issues surfaced again, and I reflexively sought my meditation. As I did though, I began recalling Myss's discussion on the third center:

The third chakra, often called the solar plexus, is our personal power center, the magnetic core of the personality and the ego. The illnesses that originate here are activated by issues related to self-responsibility, self-esteem, fear of rejection and an oversensitivity to criticism.

Then on the subject of the chakra itself:

... In the third chakra, however, the gravitational center is partly internalized, as our focus shifts from how we relate to people around us to how we relate to and understand ourselves...

And on the Sephirot:

...Netzach represetns the divine quality of endurance, and... Hod represents the quality of majesty (or integrity)... Both represent the qualities we need in order to 'Stand Up' as individuals... they are sybolically illustrated as the legs of the body...

And the Sacrament of Confirmation:

This sacrament represents the emergence of the 'conscious self' or that part of the human personality that is eternal and naturally aligned to the sacred.

This Center is associated with the third truth above, "Honor Oneself."

...The energies that come together in this chakra have but one spiritual goal: to help us mature in our self-understanding - the relationship we have with ourselves, and how we stand on our own and take care of ourselves. The spiritual quality conferred by the sacrament of Confirmation is self-respect.

Now, i will admit that I jumped ahead a bit, I had not finished this chapter and gone over the self-examination questions which are a part of each of these chapters that are intended to help the reader come to a process of self-enquiry designed to develop health in each of the centers as you follow the course of the book in application. I'm used to scanning my body at this point, and Myss had discussed the concepts of symbolic sight and recieving objective images relating to the core issues of each center's imbalances. So, I moved my meditation in a direction of recieving insight rather than directing energy into the problem area, and as soon as I opened my mind and asked my body very simply "What's causing this?" I began a process of realization and internal dialogue.

I will get somewhat personal here because I believe this book is of considerable value to anyone at all, much less anyone in need of real self-healing.

Keeping in mind the statement "Honor Oneself" and how it related in some way to the dysfunction of this center, the first image that occurred to me objectively - unemotionally - was of my partner. So I asked myself in some confusion - How does that relate to my somehow not honoring myself? My reply in somewhat less verbal format was essentially that my partner does not fullfill the needs that I have established for myself adequately, and that I stay with him out of a combination of habit and guilt for having 'lead him on this far'. In doing so, I am not honoring myself according to the nature of my own needs and desires. A kind of list of those unsatisfied needs, paired with the ways in which I wanted to fulfill them through other means, occurred to me as well.

To this I replied with personal Authority that My relationship with my partner is healthy and stable and this is the first time I have had that in my life. I do not feel that I have to be with him, I have chosen to be with him because I see the value of our relationship both emotionall and practically, to both of us. He loves me deeply, he acknowledges me even when I don't feel I need it, and I do the same with him. We have mutual respect and I could not ask for more from a person than what he gives me freely and gladly - he supports my own sense of personal power, rather than trying to be a source of power for me, which is far more valuable and loving.

My own mind then responded with a list of guilts and fears about my own desires that extend beyond our relationship - my desire for more sex, basically, and with other people.

With the same tone, I explained to my body and mind that those needs are false - i gain nothing useful or healthy by being with other men, and that I do not need sex to validate myself because I am a grown up now and I have chosen to act like an adult from now on in that regard. I reflected briefly on times when I did use sex for validation, and made a psychological distinction between myself now, and that person then, and established the boundary where I had made the choice to be a different person with different needs and wants and a healthier attitude in life. I further explained that I refused to feel a bit of shame just for looking at other guys, and even for daydreaming about other men occasionally - I daydream about my partner as well, and I honor both him and myself by remaining loyal to him even when the opportunity presents itself to violate that trust we share. I reflected that although I have felt the temptation in those times, the thought of actually doing it never crossed my mind because I had agreed with myself after our relationship became serious that I made my choices in sound judgement and based on positive desires and principles.

With that, I literally felt a sense of agreement from my body-mind, as though it said, "Alright, I accept your choices then." This all seems drawn out in text, but in reality it took place in moments, we know how thought can occur in rapid succession. As soon as my body-mind agreed to my terms, I felt a warm tingling sensation move through me from my pelvis to my chest, and felt something in my abdomen relax drastically, and my pain went away instantly. It's only been the majority of a day, but usually this is a three of four time a day incident with my body. So far I have been fine - there was a moment where I started to feel the pain come back much lighter than it had been, but I simply and quickly reminded myself of my experience before and my agreements and choices, and it went away. I suspect it will happen again periodically, and then other issues of self-honoring may arise but I think the most intense issues were the ones presented first for examination.

There is an interesting aspect to 'personal power' that Myss talks about, having to do with where we draw power, self-esteem, etc. That is that we can draw power from and be healthy with, power drawn from negative things, but to a point and only for so long. Eventually they will be detrimental and it is not enough for us to simply turn away from them - we have to withdraw the attachment to them which can last long after we 'give up the habit' as it were (whether that's a substance, a person, a job, etc.). Often times we give up that negative power source and our health declines even though we made that positive change! According to Myss, in so many words, it's because we are still energetically attached, we identify it as a source of power that is no longer there, thus depriving us of that 'acquired' power to be healthy and whole (which is to say, that's what we really think of that power source whether it's true or not: "I need this, I won't be happy without it," etc.). In her estimation, the positive external things are essentially the same - although we may be in healthy relationships, for instance, it is still not optimal to draw power from other people in our lives no matter how positive they are for us, because if at some point they are not there, for whatever reason, then we will experience that lack and our health will decline in some way - although not as badly as it does when we lose more controlling attachments like an addiction.

In my own case, although I've been completely loyal to my partner for over a year now, and have had no reason to feel guilty or ashamed of anything in that regard, and although my lifestyle has changed drastically in that department and I don't have sex nearly as often anymore - I had not directly addressed my previous attachments to that lifestyle. They were still there, albeit in a more minor way than they may once have been, and because of them I was suffering from a sense of unfulfilled needs, and in a way directing that sense towards my partner, ultimately convincing my energy that I was ignoring my own desires and thus, not honoring my Self. Regardless to the absolute nature of self-honor, self-esteem, etc., my body was reacting according to the way my energy has been conditioned. When I addressed the psychological root, the energetic aspect of my former attachments, in a direct and authoritative way, my body reacted by drawing more personal power from my own conviction and inner strength instead of still reaching out for that former lifestyle.

I am still working through the book and after this experience began reading over the earlier chapters of the last part again, to address each center more thoroughly as I go along. I cannot give a high enough accolade or reccommendation for this book for anyone, I believe it should be on every shelf. This book is one that will unlock the practical use of many other texts on the subject of self-healing and self-empowerment, which makes it even more valuable than all of those books put together, as they are often practically useless in and of themselves without the right perspective on application and the process of self-healing on a practical energetic level.

peace

I will get the book, and apply the same principle to my own pains. Perhaps this is what will enable me to reestablish a connection to the Breath of Life which I seek.

When I addressed the psychological root, the energetic aspect of my former attachments, in a direct and authoritative way, my body reacted by drawing more personal power from my own conviction and inner strength instead of still reaching out for that former lifestyle.

And it's the power from conviction and inner strength that really counts. That's the only power you can truly rely on.

The one person in this world that will always let you know where they stand on things is yourself - My father.

Thank you for the review. Because of it I picked the book up along with another one from her at a used book store.

This seems like a wonderful book not only for healing the body but also the soul. My thanks for the review, I'm looking forawrd to getting my own copy.