{"product_id":"the-energies-of-love-isbn-9780399174926","title":"The Energies of Love","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe bestselling authors of \u003ci\u003eEnergy Medicine\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eEnergy Medicine for Women\u003c\/i\u003e present a complete program for using energy medicine to heal and strengthen romantic relationships.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA relationship begins with the meeting of two unique energies. This union of energies, though invisible, determines the way you communicate, fight, love, and want to be loved. In this groundbreaking book, the bestselling authors of \u003ci\u003eEnergy Medicine \u003c\/i\u003edraw on the real-life experiences of couples who have attended their popular “Energies of Love” workshops, as well as their own experience as husband and wife, to show how an understanding of your energy system and that of your partner can help you build a more harmonious and loving bond.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWe all have different ways of making sense of the world around us, but when faced with conflict, especially with those we care most about, we tend to revert to one of four “Energetic Stress Styles”:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e- Visuals are extremely passionate and inspire others to care about the things they care about, but in moments of conflict, their take on the situation can overshadow what is actually occurring, undermining their ability to empathize with their partner.\u003cbr\u003e- Kinesthetics are generous, compassionate, and accepting of other people, but their caring nature pulls them in too many directions. They try to meet others’ needs at the expense of their own, which can cause mounting resentment.\u003cbr\u003e- Digitals are rational and principled and have a gift for quickly understanding complex situations, but they can become closed to others’ perspectives and feelings.\u003cbr\u003e- Tonals have a gift for understanding others and their dilemmas, but during moments of conflict, their ability to read between the lines can morph into hearing what was never said, felt, or thought.\u003cp\u003eAccording to the authors, the strongest relationships are those in which the two parties feel that they are partners on a shared spiritual journey. By helping you better understand your own unique energy system, as well as that of your partner, you will be able to recognize your strengths as a couple-¬and avoid the pitfalls. \u003ci\u003eThe Energies of Love \u003c\/i\u003eserves as a powerful resource for anyone who wishes to build a rich partnership while maintaining  the spark that keeps a relationship exciting.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003e“\u003cb\u003eThe Energies of Love\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e heralds a revolution in our understanding of relationships. I believe it to be one of the most important books of our time.”\u003cbr\u003e—from the foreword by \u003cb\u003eJean Houston, Ph.D.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Donna Eden and David Feinstein empower readers with knowledge and techniques from ancient energy healing and spiritual practices that will forever change the way you understand relationship. These are revolutionary ideas! I highly recommend \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Energies of Love\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eJohn Gray, Ph.D\u003c\/b\u003e.,\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eauthor of \u003ci\u003eMen Are From Mars, Women are from Venus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e“\u003cb\u003eThe Energies of Love \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eis a fresh, potent, practical approach to relationships. It addresses the vital topic of how to keep the energy of relationship positive and growing, a key to conscious evolution for both people and the planet.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eJoan Borysenko, Ph.D.\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eMinding the Body, Mending the Mind\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Energies of Love\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e is an inspiring application of energy concepts and techniques for illuminating and nurturing the love that all couples seek. Combining insights from science and clinical practice with a wide array of revealing stories and a toolbox of practical techniques, the authors demonstrate the power of energy methods for helping relationships thrive.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Eric Leskowitz, M.D.\u003c\/b\u003e, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Donna Eden and David Feinstein explore the 'energy dimension' (what we call the 'Space Between') and provide wonderful practices for experimenting, understanding, and opening to the awareness of that shared space.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eHarville Hendrix, Ph.D., and Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D.\u003c\/b\u003e, co-authors, \u003ci\u003eMaking Marriage Simple\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Plunge into \u003ci\u003eT\u003cb\u003ehe Energies of Love\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e and let Donna Eden and David Feinstein reveal how love means going beyond the individual, local self to that nonlocal, infinite, boundless domain where true love actually resides. This is an important book for all those who want to take their relationship to the next level.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Larry Dossey, M.D.\u003c\/b\u003e, author of \u003ci\u003eOne Mind\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eHealing Words\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Is there anything new that can be said about love? Yes there is, and you can find it in this remarkable book. If this tattered world of ours is going to survive, it will be through the energies of love. Donna Eden and David Feinstein bring a fresh understanding to that timeless yet urgent pursuit.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Stanley Krippner, Ph.D.\u003c\/b\u003e, co-author of \u003ci\u003eThe Realms of Healing\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\"If you want more love and joy in your life, you've found the road map! \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Energies of Love \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eprovides potent tools and guidance to improve your relationships at the most fundamental, rapid, and enduring level.\"\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eEllen Eatough\u003c\/b\u003e, The Soulful Sex Coach, Extatica.com\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePraise for Donna Eden:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Donna Eden is one of the most joyous and effective pioneers in the rapidly expanding and vitally important frontier called energy medicine. This book, the classic in hands-on energy medicine, is an enormously practical guide that sings with compassion, integrity, and wisdom.\" \u003cb\u003e—Christiane Northrup, M.D., \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e-bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eWomen's Bodies, Women's Wisdom \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe Wisdom of Menopause\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Donna Eden's body-energy work is perhaps the most brilliant, comprehensive, and effective system in the genre that I have ever seen.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Jean Houston, Ph.D., author of \u003ci\u003eThe Possible Human\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Even the most hard-nosed doctor will admit that some people have a healing presence that makes us—and our immune systems—better than before. Donna Eden is one of those rare healers.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Gloria Steinem\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eDonna Eden\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eis among the world’s most sought-after, authoritative, and joyous spokespersons for energy medicine. Her abilities as a healer are legendary. She has taught some eighty thousand people worldwide how to understand the body as an energy system.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDavid Feinstein, Ph.D.\u003c\/b\u003e, a clinical psychologist, has served on the faculty of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and has received nine national awards for his books on consciousness and healing. Donna and David's bestselling \u003ci\u003eEnergy Medicine\u003c\/i\u003e has been translated into eighteen languages.\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile teaching our Energies of Love classes in recent years, Donna has become fond of saying, “Thank God I didn’t leave David when I should have!” In thinking about our gratitudes and acknowledgments for this book, David’s first and foremost appreciation is that Donna didn’t leave him when she should have and Donna’s is that David came around so it was worth the wait. Given the uncertainties and struggles we have gone through, we are as amazed as we are gratified by how many people who have watched us teach or work together in recent years have told us that our relationship is an inspiration that gives them hope. Their comments have helped push us over the line into being bold enough to write this book.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Energies of Love\u003c\/i\u003e, which in a true sense has been in gestation for the entire thirty-seven years of our relationship, is indebted to so many people that we aren’t even going to risk naming names. Not only would that fill many pages, we would still inevitably leave out too many who have lent a guiding hand along the way. Instead, we will list categories. Guilty parties will know where they fit. First are our parents and families of origin, who inaugurated us into all that was to follow. Next, our daughters and extended family provide the foundation on which we stand. Then our closest friends, from childhood to present day. Our lovers and intimates from the past provided us with the most personal and profound instruction about what works . . . and what doesn’t. Our teachers, our many magnificent teachers, formal and informal, helped shape who we are. And our therapists—we know we were tough cookies, and we thank you for giving your all to meet the challenges. Our clients and students have taught us so much by allowing us to participate in their journeys.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe actual writing, putting words on paper, was facilitated in so many ways by the support of our magnificent staff at Innersource and the hundreds of energy medicine and energy psychology practitioners who orbit around them. Our editor at Tarcher\/Penguin as well as the publisher’s founder, its current chief, and its staff have been gifts that few authors today can even hope for. Finally, we have sought counsel for specific sections of the book from friends and colleagues, and they have contributed generously and masterfully.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe are deeply grateful to every one of you.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eForeword\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen you first meet them, they seem an unlikely couple. Donna is exuberant, spontaneous, intuitive. David is quietly reflective, studious, and always looking for deeper meanings. She is champagne; he is still water. She is of a tropical nature; he is most definitely northern. And yet, with all their contrasts, they have, through dint of unstinting effort and rich affection, cultivated a loving, creative, and exemplary marriage. He puts her feelings and intuition into words. She sees and orchestrates energies that enable him to enter a different universe of understanding. Together, they have done the hard work of relationship, and we are their beneficiaries.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhich is to say that \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eEnergies of Love\u003c\/i\u003e heralds a revolution in our understanding of relationships. I believe it to be one of the most important books of our time, the “Open Sesame” to new ways of being. Drawing upon their many years of work in energy medicine and energy psychology, the authors have given us a deeply original and eminently practical art and science for crossing the great divide of otherness. Theirs is the state-of-the-art understanding and utilization of the emerging science of consciously orchestrating the energies of brain and heart, body, mind, and spirit, a technology of human transformation and social evolution. They offer tools and techniques, stories, and examples that enhance ways of lifting relationships to higher bands of energy and harmony. They explore the reality of how different brains come with different energies and how to understand the structures, stages, and styles of love and romance. And their take on the traditional battle of the sexes is both unique and startling. They have found the way to end the ancient war! As they say:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou are living in perhaps the most exciting yet challenging time in history for being on a journey inspired by love. Never before have people been beckoned so strongly to create relationships where the forces that have been traditionally thought of as masculine and the forces that have been traditionally thought of as feminine can join \u003ci\u003ewithin\u003c\/i\u003e each person and \u003ci\u003ebetween\u003c\/i\u003e two partners to form the richest relationships since the dawn of time!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe implications here are enormous. Shifting the ways we relate to one another, male and female, is an indispensable step toward the discovery of new styles of interpersonal connection, new ways of being in community, and the emergence of a global society. The movement seems to be from the egocentric to the ethnocentric to the worldcentric—a fundamental change in the nature of civilization, compelling a passage beyond the mind-set and institutions of millennia.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCritical to this reformation is a true partnership society in which women join men in the full social agenda. Since women tend to emphasize process over product, to understand the power of \u003ci\u003ebeing\u003c\/i\u003e as well as \u003ci\u003edoing\u003c\/i\u003e, deepening rather than end-goaling, it is inevitable that as a result of this partnership, linear, sequential solutions will evolve to the knowing that comes from seeing things in whole constellations rather than as discrete facts. The consciousness engendered by this comprehensive vision raises hope for forgiveness and healing among individuals, ethnic groups, and nations. Essential to this matured consciousness is moral and ethical growth toward the \u003ci\u003egolden rule\u003c\/i\u003e of human interchange, about which Donna Eden and David Feinstein know so much and give so rich a palette of information and training.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUltimately it is about a new kind of education, of which this book is a primary text. In the places where our world truly operates interdependently and with this kind of education, old barriers can dissolve, along with the ancient fears that sustained them. What Donna and David offer in their work are the necessary tools and practices, the empathic understandings and the science that can support so great a whole-system transition. We have to learn the dynamics of getting along with each other, of coming to love and appreciate each other. They remind us that when the world is trying to coalesce into a new and higher unity for which we are seemingly unprepared, the only preparatory force that is emotionally powerful enough to prompt us to fully heed this call is found in the energies of love.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLove transforms the way we see, think, dream, act, engage the world, serve others, and even transcend our local selves. It is the source of much creative endeavor—songs, poetry, writing, dreaming, human folly, and human glory. It awakens us and keeps us going. As we love more, we honor more. We see and accept more. We honor pain, beauty, and one another’s path. With love we become more intelligent and creative, for we are open to the patterns of intelligence from the whole network of life. We come to glimpse the wonder of life in its infinite forms, and the wonder that is within us. Quite simply, with love we are able to exceed our local conditions and to evolve.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe teaching of this book is to bring ourselves to a loving resonance, discovering strategies and practices of loving that then can become daily practice, constant application. This may be the most important learning of them all, the one that may hold the greatest good for life on this planet—learning how to commit to the choice of loving. As you do, you will discover that the universe is also alive and loving: as you move toward it, it moves toward you. The universe grows by its connections and its attractions: atoms to atoms, molecules to molecules, bodies to bodies, groups to groups, nations to nations, and finally the \u003ci\u003eworld\u003c\/i\u003e as lover.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe are asked, in this epoch of cultural rebirth, to grow into the people willing and able to face, solve, and succeed in the enormous challenges that have arisen. In so huge a transitional moment of history, we require new skills and capacities as well as nurturing relationships in which our evolving selves are supported and given training that dissolves the barriers between our ordinary and our extraordinary selves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is all here in this remarkable work. The transformative power of the energies of love can and does evoke in us a Divine response: deep acceptance and forgiveness, profound spoken and unspoken communion and communication, the ecstasies of eros and the fires of union, a wave-tide of giving and receiving so abundant that it seems drawn from the very ocean of abundance itself, weaving together in love all of life’s dramas. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—Jean Houston, Ph.D.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAshland, Oregon\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMay 2014\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntroduction\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLove is the pinnacle of evolution, the most compelling survival mechanism of the human species.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e—SUE JOHNSON, PH.D.1\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe often joke, or half joke, that if we can make it, any couple can make it. While our basic values, mercifully, complement one another’s effortlessly, our personalities, temperaments, and lifestyle inclinations don’t. David thrives in dry hot weather, Donna withers. Donna’s interests and attention jump like fire in a dozen different directions; David can become irritated when his plodding, intense focus is jerked from its course by one of her eruptions of enthusiasm. David organizes his life around endeavors that make him feel well utilized and worthy; Donna functions best moment by moment. Donna works most effectively within an unhurried, unscheduled, organic pace; David has been compared to a freight train when he is engaged in a project. Donna’s disposition is to yield to the other person’s ways, so even though David is attracted to her for her joyful nature, his more somber style sets their tone. She then feels invisible and discounted; he wonders why her friends bring out the person he wants to be with while he so often doesn’t.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHaving experimented with the basics of this program for more than thirty years, we went to Alex’s, a restaurant in our hometown of Ashland, Oregon, with the commitment that we were not going to leave the lounge until we had completed the first sentence of this book. We finished our tempura shrimp and many refills of club soda; considered a dozen ways to begin the book; settled on the highly personal; wrote the “if we can make it” sentence; watched a young couple kissing on the restaurant’s balcony overlooking Ashland’s famous plaza; thanked them later for adding to the spirit of our project; joked with the restaurant’s manager, who told us that she had announced to her husband that they were expecting their first child at the same table where we were birthing this project; and, finally satisfied with our sixteen-word writing spree, went on our way.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe next morning, David filled in the remainder of the first paragraph, writing as he often does in the early hours. When Donna awoke, he read it to her. She liked it very well until the last line. She said, “Do you mean to tell me you still feel that way? I thought you were over that twenty years ago.” Her tone had hurt and shock. David felt discounted and unfairly attacked. Donna couldn’t believe that he was accusing her of attacking him, when it was \u003ci\u003eshe\u003c\/i\u003e whose feelings had been hurt. We were off to the who-was-wronged-worse races, both also feeling, “What an inauspicious beginning for a book on the energies of love!”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs our discouragement escalated, and after a brief period of separation as Donna bathed and David stewed, Donna said, “If we are really going to do this book and present these techniques, let’s see if they can get us out of this one.” David used a technique for countering the energies that can trigger his defensiveness when Donna is hurt by something he has done. Donna used a technique to counter her energetic freeze and inability to think when David reacts defensively. Why we’d never tackled this particular long-standing pattern before using these tools, we cannot say; perhaps we were saving it for demonstration purposes. The ten minutes of retrieval work not only “got us out of this one,” it helped shift the pattern.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book shows you how to work your way out of such entanglements with your partner, along with ways to turn your differences into strengths and areas of stagnation into renewal. What is most unusual in our approach is that it does not focus only on psychological differences, communication styles, and positive intentions. It also shows you how to focus directly and effectively on your \u003ci\u003eenergies\u003c\/i\u003e, your partner’s \u003ci\u003eenergies\u003c\/i\u003e, and how they interact.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat Is This Thing Called Love?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou are reading a book whose title includes two terms—\u003ci\u003elove\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eenergies\u003c\/i\u003e—that have baffled scientists, philosophers, and theologians for as long as their disciplines have existed. We are not arrogant enough to promise to resolve the historical ambiguities, contradictions, and mysteries surrounding either term (much as we’d like to), but we will try to give you a working feel for each that will be useful in reading this book.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAncient Greek philosophers described four types of love: \u003ci\u003eagape\u003c\/i\u003e (spiritual, selfless, unconditional love), \u003ci\u003eeros\u003c\/i\u003e (passionate love, with sensual desire and longing), \u003ci\u003ephilia\u003c\/i\u003e (affectionate regard or friendship), and \u003ci\u003estorge\u003c\/i\u003e (the natural affection of kinship, such as that felt by parents for their children). The Old Testament enumerates love’s qualities: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. . . . It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres” (1 Corinthians 13:4–8). The New Testament\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eidentifies three sources of human love (heart, soul, and mind) and suggests that we can willfully direct our love: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” (Luke 10:27). It also goes beyond the human dimension of love, equating love with God: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). The idea of two loves—one earthly, one heavenly—can be found throughout recorded history.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFor the scientist, one of the fundamental principles of the universe is the proclivity to \u003ci\u003ebond\u003c\/i\u003e. Within moments after the Big Bang, elementary particles began forming stable relationships of increasing complexity.2 Brian Swimme and Mary Tucker note that “[a]ttraction between a proton and an electron is a way in which the universe gives rise to ever greater levels of complexity which, after some fourteen billion years, includes us.”3 Bonding at the subatomic level is necessary for your body to exist, and nature extended the principle so you must jump the spatial gap between you and another to create the next generation. A magnetic energy compels you to take the leap; love at its many levels, from earthly to heavenly, makes that biological leap distinctly human. Writing as a research scientist whose lab at the University of North Carolina investigates positive human emotion, psychologist Barbara Fredrickson reports that love literally changes the cell structures that affect physical health, vitality, and ultimately, “whether you’ll thrive or just get by.”4 She provocatively suggests that while love is composed of many moments of biochemical, emotional, and behavioral connection, from the body’s perspective, these are, “fleeting,” “not lasting,” just “forever renewable.”5\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe energies of love are a dynamic force between two people that transcend their personalities, their beliefs, and their backgrounds. These energies are channeled from deep in your being, meet, and merge into an alchemical fuel that transforms you. You are their container, yet you cannot contain them. As you evolve, as you expand the container, the energies of love expand along with you. This is a book about the energies of love as well as the human containers through which they flow.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Energies within Us; the Energies between Us\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJust as each of us is born with a completely unique physical structure, we are also born with a completely unique “energy structure.” Electrical impulses move through our bodies. Electrical fields surround our organs. These impulses and fields control our physical growth. This was first demonstrated scientifically in the 1930s when Harold Burr, a neuroanatomist at Yale, designed equipment that could measure the electromagnetic field around an unfertilized salamander egg.6 Burr stumbled on the extraordinary finding that the electromagnetic field of the egg was shaped like a \u003ci\u003emature\u003c\/i\u003e salamander. The electrical axis that would later align with the brain and spinal cord was already present, as if the blueprint for the adult were there in the egg’s energy field. The embryo would grow to take the shape of the electromagnetic field. The physiology patterned itself after the field! Burr went on to find electromagnetic fields surrounding all manner of organisms, from molds to plants to frogs to humans, and he was able to distinguish electrical patterns that corresponded with health and with illness.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEnergy fields not only govern our health and biological growth but also impact our relationships. The heart and brain are each surrounded by an electromagnetic field, with the heart’s field, you may be surprised to hear, having some sixty times the amplitude of the brain’s field.7 The electromagnetic field produced by your heart can be detected anywhere on the surface of your body using an electrocardiogram, and it also extends a number of feet beyond you, radiating in all directions, which can be detected by other instruments. The electromagnetic signals produced by your heart are registered by the brains of people around you. If two people are within conversational distance, fluctuations in the heart signal of one correspond with fluctuations in the brain waves of the other.8\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot only do your physiological responses sync up energetically with your partner’s during intimate interactions, but also the field radiated by your heart can transmit emotions. Researchers at the HeartMath Institute in California have described this in measurable terms: “The rhythmic beating patterns of the heart change significantly as we experience different emotions. Difficult emotions, such as anger or frustration, are associated with an erratic, disordered, incoherent pattern in the heart’s rhythms. In contrast, pleasurable emotions, such as love or appreciation, are associated with a smooth, ordered, coherent pattern in the heart’s rhythmic activity. [These changes] create corresponding changes in the structure of the electromagnetic field radiated by the heart.”9 Your heart carries emotional information that physically impacts your partner.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMeanwhile, even with its smaller electromagnetic field, the brain contains some one hundred billion neurons that each connects electrochemically with up to ten thousand other neurons. The brain’s electrical impulses constitute an incomprehensibly complex energy system that maintains your habits of perceiving, thinking, and responding to your world. Beyond these measurable electrical energies are more subtle energies carried by your body’s meridians, chakras, and aura—concepts familiar in healing traditions across time and cultures, even if not acknowledged by Western science because they have (until recently10) eluded its ability to detect them. Change the energies that travel through your body and you can change your mood, your mind, and your relationships.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhen David went into meltdown, the changes in his electrical system occurred in his heart as well as his brain, and measurable electrical changes in Donna’s heart and brain occurred in response. Altering this electrical dissonance was our first focus in beginning to make things better. Not empathy, not analysis, not insight, not love. We turned to simple energy techniques.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe have often been painfully moved as we’ve watched clients and friends, as well as ourselves, ineffectually struggle to improve their relationships, using every ounce of smarts and goodwill at their disposal. Sometimes the way the energy is moving through your body keeps you trapped in a particular pattern of thought and behavior. Often the quickest way to free yourself from the pattern is to shift the underlying energy rather than to target the feelings, thoughts, or behavior.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Tools: Something Old, Something New\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and other pioneers of psychodynamic approaches to emotional healing showed how our childhood experiences—echoes from the recesses of our past—can still be affecting us today. Many of the therapies that arose from their revolutionary work have given us maps to help free ourselves from the effects of emotional injury or trauma in childhood. This resulted in a quantum leap in humanity’s self-concept: Deeply embedded psychological patterns can be transformed, and tools for initiating that transformation are available.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWe are now standing at another momentous threshold, one that translates these insights into practices that are more rapid and effective than ever before. Methods are available that can shift the energies that are not only at the core of your thoughts, mood, and behavior, but also of your health and happiness. The disciplines of \u003ci\u003eenergy medicine\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eenergy psychology\u003c\/i\u003e, new to Western culture yet drawing on ancient healing and spiritual traditions, are rapidly ascending in the popular as well as professional eye. We have borrowed heavily from both disciplines in writing this book.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOur own personal and professional lives have been deeply committed to advancing these methods. That commitment and the experiences that have emerged from it are our primary credentials for offering this volume. Other background about us that you may find relevant for framing our ideas:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDonna has since childhood seen energies, surrounding and moving through the body, as clearly as you see the print on this page, and she has learned that, like the print, these energies have distinct meanings and can be informative about health and healing. She is, in fact, internationally known for her clairvoyant abilities to perceive and work with the body’s energies. The way people like Donna can see energies that other people can’t see has been compared to the way dogs can hear frequencies that humans can’t hear. The energies are there and operating, but beyond most people’s awareness. More significant, Donna has taught tens of thousands of people around the world who don’t see energy to nonetheless assess and shift energy flows in ways that enhance their health and vitality.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDavid has been a clinical psychologist for nearly four decades. In recent years his focus has, with Donna’s influence, turned to the application of energy methods for working with psychological issues. Our combined six books and numerous papers and articles on these topics have attempted to bring energy medicine and energy psychology to both professional and popular audiences. With these backgrounds, we come together to present you with this practical guide for optimizing the energies that affect your relationships.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Context: A New Age for Partnerships\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhile your relationship is a unique creation between you and your partner, it is not only between you and your partner. It builds on the customs and relationship patterns established by your parents and their parents and the generations before them, and it is being shaped by changes in your culture that are unfolding at a pace that could not have been imagined just a few decades ago. These changes penetrate to the ways we think of ourselves as men and women and are reflected in how we relate to one another.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eComing into Balance\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn most societies, extending back to the dawn of recorded history, men have controlled property, held the central positions of political power, and retained the primary authority within the family and the community. Within this patriarchal structure, men have dominated women not only through force but more covertly through mass indoctrination into what was officially depicted as the natural order of things. Modern Western societies, for instance, assign worth to people, to a large extent, by their ability to produce wealth. Women, saddled with the tasks of child-rearing and tending the home, were, by these terms, second-class citizens. They were less valued and many of their natural ways of operating in the world were curtailed, ridiculed, or even condemned. As Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wryly observed, “well-behaved women seldom make history.”11 These constraints have, however, been imploding in recent decades.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA new valuing and empowering of women is emerging in modern societies, reflected in part\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Tarcher","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300409987301,"sku":"NP9780399174926","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780399174926.jpg?v=1767739191","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-energies-of-love-isbn-9780399174926","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}