Second Chance at Your Dream:
Energy Psychology’s Gifts for Creativity, Health and Optimal Aging
by Dorothea Hover-Kramer, Ed.D. RN, DCEP
We are born with possibilities. As we grow, we imagine a great dream for our lives. This dream can get submerged or even derailed by the many challenges of adult life. The second half of life, usually sometime after 50 or 60, offers us a second chance.
With recent advances in healthcare, we have been given the gift of 30-50 more years. It is imperative that we find ways to use them wisely. Because most of us have extra time, we have untold opportunities for creating change within ourselves. And from there, to influence our friends, our communities, our world.
Our culture avoids discussing the possibility of creative and meaningful aging. Instead, fear and denial are associated with the later half of life and its most discernible tasks such as job retirement, lifestyle changes, grandparenting or mentoring others, coping with changes in the body, losing loved ones and facing our own mortality. Rather than a time of decline, the second half of life can be an opportunity for abundant new beginnings.
Through the gifts of energy psychology, a newly emerging discipline within psychotherapy, we have access now to numerous ways to stay in optimal physical balance, release dysfunctional emotional patterns, change perceptions of difficult situations, build a sense of hope and positive expectancy and to connect with our innate creativity. Unlike thinking that suggests there is some external factor, medication, or device for treating later life’s challenges, self-care with energy psychology’s gifts can easily be learned.
Within your body resides your vital life force, the quality called Qi (pronounced “chee”) discussed in classical Chinese texts for over 5,000 years and the basis of the current practices of acupuncture and acupressure. Directing this Qi with self-care techniques from the field of energy psychology assists persons to resolve internal conflicts, remove blocks to creativity and empower living more fully.
EP is an excellent resource for maintaining health and flexibility. To demonstrate, please take one deep breath and let it go fully as you read this. Continuing with the breath, allow yourself to make a self-affirming statement such as, “I deeply appreciate myself with all my gifts, talents and abilities.” Now add gentle rubbing of a tender spot on the left upper mid-chest toward the left shoulder while you repeat the self-affirming statement. If you are working on a challenge you might say, “Even though I have this challenge, I deeply appreciate myself and my gifts and choose to find the best solution.” Continue with the breath to release any tension from your body.
Once you start using similar patterns to help yourself you may find you are much less likely to get stuck on an issue or to feel helpless. It is a creative act to help yourself and open to new possibilities. Creative acts such as helping yourself and others give deeper meaning to life and, in turn, enhance your health and sense of well-being. Thriving in the second half of life is intricately linked to flexibility and creativity in interpersonal relationships.
Contrary to traditional thinking that associates living well with lots of activity, the full-energy life is about connecting to inner wisdom and refining the arrow of intention. This orientation is filled with joy, peacefulness, openness, curiosity, wonder, appreciation, flexibility, exploration, new viewpoints and moving “beyond the box” of traditional thinking about aging.
Moving from longevity to “fun-gevity” is made possible by letting go of stressful issues rapidly so there is available energy for more satisfying choices. For most issues, energetic self-care offers drug-free paths for relieving anxiety, finding inner harmony and thriving in advancing years.
Energy psychology (EP) is the broad term describing a growing body of knowledge that joins together a large family of therapeutic approaches. They share focus on effecting rapid emotional relief with the resources of the human energy system. These resources include the meridians and their related acupoints as well as the body’s biofield and the energetic centers known as charkas. In the past twenty years, energy modalities have gained popular acceptance in hospital settings for relief of anxiety and pain with methods such as Therapeutic Touch, Healing Touch or Reiki. Energy psychology (EP) includes interventions known mainly by acronyms such as EFT, TFT, TAT, TAB, EDxTM, and is recognized and frequently used in psychotherapeutic settings. The international association, ACEP (Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology), has existed for 0ver 10 years and boasts a large and growing membership, research studies, conferences, and the books of Energy Psychology Press/Elite Books led by Dawson Church, author-publisher.
EP also gives direct tools for overcoming limiting beliefs or releasing negative emotions. Specifically, dysfunctional beliefs about our own aging can be addressed to ensure that the next thirty to fifty years of life medical advances have brought us are vibrant, free of emotional burdens and bursting with the energy so needed to help our imperiled planet.
Many myths about aging need to be debunked. Long-held beliefs such as genetic determinism, brain cell stagnation, and “natural involution” can be countered with methods to expand mental activity and optimize genetic expression. The new science of epigenetic research clearly shows how gene expression lies within control of the conscious mind and the choices we make. Neuroscience supports evidence for the plasticity of brain cells which respond continuously to our intention and emotional reactions. The more we expand the apertures of consciousness with creative thinking the more our neurons will grow and regenerate. Many baby boomers who are now over sixty are showing that life can be wonderfully fulfilling when they follow long put-off interests, reconnect with friends of their youth, and explore ways of contributing for the greater good of their communities.
I encourage you to envision a new picture of audacious aging in which engaged, passionate elders bring their collective wisdom to our imperiled world. We are the talented and essential beings who, by healing and empowering ourselves, can heal and empower others. We are the ones who bring love of humanity and the natural world to our families and communities. The second half of life is indeed the opportunity to reclaim our life’s dream!
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Dorothea Hover-kramer
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