I disappoint some people when I discuss intuition because I firmly believe that intuitive or symbolic sight is not a gift but a skill -- a skill based in self-esteem. Developing this skill -- and a healthy sense of self -- becomes easier when you can think in the words, concepts, and principles of energy medicine. So as you read this chapter, think of learning to use intuition as learning to interpret the language of energy.

The Human Energy Field

Everything that is alive pulsates with energy and all of this energy contains information. While it is not surprising that practitioners of alternative or complementary medicine accept this concept, even some quantum physicists acknowledge the existence of an electromagnetic field generated by the body's biological processes. Scientists accept that the human body generates electricity because living tissue generates energy.

Your physical body is surrounded by an energy field that extends as far out as your outstretched arms and the full length of your body. It is both an information center and a highly sensitive perceptual system. We are constantly in communication with everything around us through this system, which is a kind of conscious electricity that transmits and receives messages to and from other peoples bodies. These messages from and within the energy field are what intuitives perceive.

Practitioners of energy medicine believe that the human energy field contains and reflects each individual's energy. It surrounds us and carries with us the emotional energy created by our internal and external experiences -- both positive and negative. This emotional force influences the physical tissue within our bodies. In this way your biography -- that is, the experiences that make up your life -- becomes your biology.

Experiences that carry emotional energy in our energy systems include: past and present relationships, both personal and professional; profound or traumatic experiences and memories; and belief patterns and attitudes, including all spiritual and superstitious beliefs. The emotions from these experiences become encoded in our biological systems and contribute to the formation of our cell tissue, which then generates a quality of energy that reflects those emotions. These energy impressions form an energy language, which carries literal and symbolic information that a medical intuitive can read.

Here is an example of the kind of message the energy field may communicate. Let's say you had some trouble with math when you were in elementary school. Knowing the fact that twelve makes a dozen would not ordinarily carry an emotional charge such as would alter the health of cell tissues. On the other hand, if you were humiliated by the teacher because you didn't know that fact, the experience would carry an emotional charge that would create cellular damage, especially if you were to dwell on that memory through adulthood or use it as a touchstone for determining how to deal with criticism, or authority figures, or education, or failure. An intuitive might pick up the literal image of your exchange with the teacher or any other negative symbol linked to that experience.

Positive images and the energy of positive experiences are also held in the energy field. Think of a time when someone praised you for a job well done, or a kind act, or for some help you gave someone. You feel a positive energy -- a surge of personal power within your body. Positive and negative experiences register a memory in cell tissue as well as in the energy field. As neurobiologist Dr. Candace Pert has proven, neuropeptides -- the chemicals triggered by emotions -- are thoughts converted into matter. Our emotions reside physically in our bodies and interact with our cells and tissues. In fact, Dr. Pert can no longer separate the mind from the body, she says, because the same kinds of cells that manufacture and receive emotional chemistry in the brain are present throughout the body. Sometimes the body responds emotionally and manufactures emotional chemicals even before the brain has registered a problem. Remember, for instance, how quickly your body reacts to a loud noise before you've had time to think.

As Dr. Pert said on Bill Moyers's Healing and the Mind,

Clearly, there's another form of energy that we have not yet understood. For example, there's a form of energy that appears to leave the body when the body dies. . . . Your mind is in every cell of your body.

Moyers: . . . You're saying that my emotions are stored in my body?

Pert: Absolutely. You didn't realize that? . . . There are many phenomena that we can't explain without going into energy.

Reading the Field

In addition to reading specific dramatic childhood experiences, sometimes an intuitive can even pick up on superstitions, personal habits, behavior patterns, moral beliefs, and preferences in music and literature. At other times the energy impressions are more symbolic. For instance, from one patient who was suffering from tightness of breath, I kept receiving the symbolic impression of him being shot in the heart before a firing squad. Obviously this had not literally happened to him, but he had undergone extensive medical tests, which could locate no known physical cause for his condition. After I shared my impression with him, he told me that his wife had betrayed him several times with other men, and being shot through the heart was exactly how he felt about her actions. By admitting these emotions, which he had previously tried to ignore, he was able to address the problems both in his marriage and in his health.

Our emotional energy converts into biological matter through a highly complex process. Just as radio stations operate according to specific energy wavelengths, each organ and system in the body is calibrated to absorb and process specific emotional and psychological energies. That is, each area of the body transmits energy on a specific, detailed frequency, and when we are healthy, all are in tune. An area of the body that is not transmitting at its normal frequency indicates the location of a problem. A change in intensity of the frequency indicates a change in the nature and seriousness of the illness and reveals the stress pattern that has contributed to the development of the illness.

This way of interpreting the body's energy is sometimes called vibrational medicine. It resembles the most ancient medical practices and beliefs, from Chinese medicine to indigenous shamanic practices to virtually every folk or alternative therapy. The truth is that energy medicine is not new; but I believe my interpretation of it and of how you can use it to heal spiritually in conjunction with contemporary medical treatments is unique. If a person is able to sense intuitively that he or she is losing energy because of a stressful situation -- and then acts to correct that loss of energy -- then the likelihood of that stress developing into a physical crisis is reduced, if not eliminated completely.

While I can parse the language of energy for you so that you can begin to see and feel the human energy field, begin to understand its corresponding spiritual anatomy, begin to know the sources of your personal power, and begin to develop your own intuition, I have some trouble explaining exactly how I personally acquire energy information. Other intuitives appear to have the same difficulty, but we all pick up on information that has the strongest impulse -- the most intensity. These impulses usually relate directly to the part of the body that is becoming weakened or diseased. As a rule, a person's energy system transmits only the information that is essential to bring the conscious mind to an awareness of the imbalance or disease. Like the shot in the heart image, symbolic information can sometimes be disturbing. But this intensity is necessary in order that the body's message can break through the habitual mental or emotional patterns that caused the disease to form in the first place. Medical intuitions cooperate with the body's intention to promote its own health and life; that is, our energy will always seek health, in spite of what we may do to ourselves physically. If, for example, we tell a lie, our energy field will often communicate to the other person the energy fact that we are not telling the truth. Energy does not and cannot lie.

Stay with Your First Impression

When you receive an intuitive impression about yourself or the person you are reading, pay attention to whatever image comes up. Most people are looking for safe intuitions, not healthy ones, and safe insights, not healthy insights, because they usually want a safe passage into the future, into the unknown. So you may be tempted to dismiss a disturbing image that you receive, or one that is not congruent with your own desires or those of the person you are reading. Most people who come to me for an evaluation have already intuited themselves that something is wrong, but they are hoping that I will give that feeling some other meaning, such as "You're merely going through a natural body change, but nothing is wrong with you physically".

Excerpted by permission of Three Rivers Press,
a division of Random House, Inc. ©1997. All rights reserved.
No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted
without permission in writing from the publisher.

This article is excerpted with permission from:

Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing
by Caroline Myss, Ph.D.

Anatomy of the Spirit is the boldest presentation to date of energy medicine by one of its premier practitioners, internationally acclaimed medical intuitive Caroline Myss. Building on wisdom from Hindu, Christian, and Kaballah traditions, this comprehensive guide to energy healing reveals the hidden stresses, beliefs, and attitudes that cause illness. By teaching you to see your body and spirit in a new way, Anatomy of the Spirit provides you with the tools for spiritual maturity and physical wholeness that will change your life.

Info/Order this book.

About The Author

Caroline Myss, Ph.D., is an internationally sought-after speaker on spirituality and personal power. She is widely recognized for her work in teaching intuitive diagnosis and is a pioneer in the field of energy medicine. Visit her website at www.myss.com. Caroline is the author of: Why People Don't Heal and How They Can, Anatomy of the Spirit, and Sacred Contracts.

Watch a powerful video with Caroline Myss: Why People Don't Heal