Donna Eden & David Feinstein: The Energies of Love

A

relationship begins with the meeting of two very different energies. These energies come together and merge into a new energy field that has, literally, never before existed on the planet. You are then left to your own devices to figure out how to make it all work. Meanwhile, this union of energies determines the way you communicate, the way you fight, the way you love, and the way you want to be loved.

It is more than likely that you will be drawn to a partner who is energetically very different from yourself. You will also have much in common, things like shared values and passions; but on a more fundamental, energetic level, we tend to attract partners who are of a very different cloth. This can be exciting, especially at the beginnings of relationships, when the world is being opened up in new ways through the unique perspective of our beloved. In the good times, we enjoy the growth and intimacy that seem to occur spontaneously, as our partner’s energy complements and rounds out our own. But in the tough times, these differences become enormous obstacles, triggering a deep stress response when we feel threatened, rejected, or unable to connect. A key to experiencing relationship as an opportunity, a challenge to grow together, rather than as a battle or power struggle, lies in Donna Eden, a pioneer in the field of holistic healing, is among the world's most sought-after, most joyous, and most authoritative spokespersons for energy medicine. She has taught some fifty thousand people how to understand the body as an energy system. Her best-selling book, Energy Medicine (Tarcher, 1999), has been translated into ten languages, and is a classic in its field. David Feinstein, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, is the author of seven books and more than fifty professional papers. He has taught at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Antioch College. He coauthored The Promise of Energy Psychology (Tarcher, 2005), and The Mythic Path (Elite, 2006). You can find out about their work at www.InnerSource.net.

understanding that you don’t only have different ideas, behaviors, or feelings—you have entirely different energetic profiles. You are as different from your partner energetically as you are physically! When you want to improve your relationship, certainly psychology is important. But if you can understand the energy of relationships, this understanding will help you in ways that are more fundamental and more immediate. We 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 and temperaments are about as different as those of any two people we know. But we have been together for twenty-nine years, and have used these differences as a springboard for a still-growing body of personal and professional work. Early in our relationship, David invited Donna to be a guest in a hypnosis class he was teaching. The evening’s session focused on the various ways people code experience, based on Richard Bandler and John Grinder’s work in Neurolinguistic -§Programming. There are four distinct types, You are as different from your partner which trace back to basic modes of processing energetically as you information: seeing, hearing, feeling, and thinkare physically. ing. A good hypnotist will work one way with -§individuals who organize their inner world in a manner that corresponds with how they see, and another way with those who organize their inner world in a manner that corresponds with how they feel. David was presenting this information as a conceptual system to be used within the context of psychotherapeutic practice. At the break, he stole a private moment with Donna, hoping to hear how impressed his new sweetie was with everything he had to say to this group of older, more seasoned, professional psychotherapists. Instead, she said, “Well, it was interesting to learn the characteristics of each of the four types, but I can see a way to determine a person’s style using a simple physical test. After all, each of the types carries a different kind of energy.” Besides the little ego twinge he felt because she had not been dazzled enough to even comment on his teaching prowess, David was incredulous. How could a physical test pick up on these psychological differences? This was preposterous, and he was happy to share that revelation with her. Undaunted, Donna immediately turned her idea into an experiment, using the class members as subjects. Sure enough, those who he had identified as visuals tested differently from those who had been identified as kinesthetics, tonals, or digitals. By the time the class reconvened, this had become the buzz and was the

The Energies

of

Love

Donna Eden & David Feinstein

only thing people wanted to talk about. So Donna wound up taking the rest of the evening, teaching a technique she calls energy testing and showing how it can be applied for determining people’s representational styles. It was an exciting evening for all involved, though the remainder of David’s planned agenda had to be put on the shelf. If he could have heard his guardian angels at that early point in the relationship, they would have been saying, “Get used to it, David!” As it turns out, although Donna’s idea seemed preposterous to David, it has proven itself in our work with hundreds of couples as a valid way for understanding how the partners process information during relationship stress. Just as each of us is born with a completely unique physical structure, we are also born with a completely unique “energy structure.” The human brain has some one hundred billion neurons that each connect 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. Just as your brain is an energy system with complex electromagnetic pathways, so is your heart. And the signals generated by your heart are even stronger than those emitted by your brain—much stronger in fact. The electromagnetic field produced by your heart can be detected anywhere on the surface of your body using an electrocardiogram. It also extends a number of feet away from your body, radiating in all directions, where it can be detected by an instrument called a SQUID-based magnetometer. So, when we say that there are four distinct energetic profiles, we are talking neither about abstract concepts nor something spiritual or otherworldly—we are talking about energy that -§is measurable, palpable, and accessible, which you Change the energies can learn to work with consciously. Change the that travel through energies that travel through your nervous system your nervous system and you can change and you can change your mood, your mind, and your mood, your your life. Learn to make sense of the way your mind, and your life. energetic disposition colors your experience of -§the world, and the way your partner’s colors his or hers, and you will be able to work together to create an even stronger relationship based on deepened intimacy and understanding. You are wired to treat a threat to your closest relationships as a survival issue. This means that when stress is caused by difficulties with your partner, your perceptions narrow, your capacity for logic diminishes, and your readiness to fight or flee is heightened. In fact, the closer a person is to you, the harder it is to keep that person in perspective when you are feeling stress about the relationship. And

the way you blur and distort the one you love has everything to do with your primary sensory or “representational” mode, which itself grows out of your particular energetic style. Your primary sensory mode is not the actual act of seeing, hearing, or feeling. Rather, you organize your inner world most closely according to the principles of seeing, hearing, feeling, or abstract logic. Human thought is extraordinarily flexible, and each of -§us normally combines all four modes. But we We distort the one instinctually tend to put more emphasis on one we love according or two of them; and when we are under stress, to the principles of the sensory mode we particularly relationship stress, all but our primatrust the most. ry mode fades into the background. We distort -§the one we love according to the principles of the sensory mode we trust the most. The other three modes simply shut down. It is not a choice but a physiological, energetic response. And when this occurs, we cannot help but distort and act inappropriately. It’s the natural thing to do. Your primary representational style or channel is far more than a mere psychological difference between you and others. It is built into your physical energy structure, and our impression is that it is built into your genes. When Donna (who sees energy in a clairvoyant-like manner) carefully watches a couple in a stressful situation, she will see one of four distinct energetic modes emerge in each partner. This energy corresponds with a way of experiencing the situation that is patterned after seeing, hearing, feeling, or thinking (the visual, tonal, kinesthetic, and digital “representational channels”). See if you recognize yourself and your partner in the next four paragraphs. Understanding your partner’s representational mode, and your own, is one of the most important steps you can take for strengthening the bridges that connect you. If a person’s primary representational channel is visual, the energies of the body concentrate in the head and the upper chest during times of relationship stress. The energies then move outward through the eyes, head, and chest, appearing to tunnel toward the other person who, incidentally, experiences the visual as having tunnel vision. Without the other modes to round out the picture, the visual style loses perspective, normally its greatest strength. With the energy radiating outward, attention moves to the other, with a focus on how the other is the cause of the problem. The visual’s “helpful” analysis is experienced by the other as judgment and blame. If the primary mode is kinesthetic, the energies move inward, rather than outward, during interpersonal stress. Whatever energies the partner is emanating are absorbed by the kinesthetic’s body. They

The Energies

of

Love

Donna Eden & David Feinstein

blend with the crisis that has already been triggered into a muddle of internal energies that seem to implode upon themselves. The distinction between oneself and the other is long gone. The energy concentrates in the center of the heart, radiates out to the trunk of the body, and becomes slow and heavy, like sludge. Thinking is not supported, as the most vital energies have left the brain. Grounding and stability are also compromised as the energies in the hips, legs, and feet become weak. Thick, painful energy also accumulates in the heart and chest of kinesthetics, until they feel like they are about to burst or to drown. From this constellation, kinesthetics are required to make the choices that will shape their relationships. For a digital under stress, it is almost the opposite. Most of the energy accumulates in the forebrain. The body is so cut off energetically that the heart and the gut have little influence on the person’s experience and, in fact, the language of the heart is muted. Meanwhile, a rich choreography of energy is unfolding within the brain. Energy from the back brain rushes to the cerebral cortex, the front brain, with a primal force. The verbal reasoning and logic of the front brain overshadow the primitive needs of the back brain, giving them the appearance of clarity and calmness. This seems to the digital to be the paragon of rational, civilized thought. The system is closed and encapsulated. Not only do the energies of the heart and gut have no pathways to consciousness, the energy of the partner bounces off like rubber bands shot at a granite wall. The partner’s logic, feelings, and desperate pleas do not upset the digital, who is not consciously trying to dismiss the other. The other’s concerns are just not relevant and will be put to rest when the partner grasps the logic of the digital’s superior understanding. The style of someone who is tonal can resemble a blend of the other three. The energy concentrates in two locations: 1) the solar plexus, and 2) the area between and including the ears. The vibratory rate of the outside world is sensitively registered -§by the tonal and then reverberates in the organs Energy dynamics can become a source of that govern intense emotion, such as the stomach, strength, rather than liver, gall bladder, kidneys, spleen, pancreas, and a source of division. adrenals.1 Under stress, the partner’s comments -§may activate a torrent of inner emotion that is not particularly related to the actual words or intended meaning. The tonal’s acute sensitivity, which under peaceful conditions lends itself to exquisite aesthetic sensibilities, leads to a cacophony of painful and contradictory emotions under stress. Everything seems to scream at the tonal under stress, sound becomes extraordinarily personal, and the distinction between the sounds generated by the partner and

those generated by the internal organs is lost. A rich drama of incompatible emotions may be enacted until the tonal has little choice but to escape from the bombardment. Things get really complex when two different energy types enter into a relationship, and they begin to trip all over one another’s ingrained tendencies. Recently, at a seminar in -§“High-banding” is a Seattle, a couple in the audience volunteered to habit that can be let us discuss their likely communication and cultivated. conflict patterns, based upon our reading of their -§sensory energetic types. The interactions (transcribed here from a videotape) began with Donna energy testing them each to determine their primary sensory mode. Then we made a few “lucky” guesses. Donna: Dan’s style is tonal. Annette’s style is visual. Visuals can see very well what you’re doing wrong [laughter, first from Dan and Annette, then from the entire group]. And it may feel at times that she’s blaming you, but for her, it’s just so disappointing that you aren’t seeing it in the obvious way. [more laughter] Dan: Were you in the back seat of our car? [laughter] Donna: I knew she was visual as soon as I looked into her eyes. There’s a power that comes out of a visual’s eyes. You know it when you’re being looked at by a visual. Annette, your secondary mode is kinesthetic, so you’ve also got a lot of feeling. But when the distress is really bad, you go into visual, where you desperately want him to see things as you see them. David: So more and more, you see what he is doing wrong, and you are really wanting to persuade him to do it right. Seems perfectly reasonable, doesn’t it! Meanwhile, for Dan, as a tonal he is able to hear between the lines. And that can be great. The best therapists are tonal or have a fair amount of tonal. They can hear what is meant even when it is not being said. The trouble, when you go into stress, is that sometimes what you hear doesn’t have too much to do with what is actually going on. Dan: You really were in the back seat of the car! [much laughter] David: But it’s comforting to know that it’s not just that your partner is totally hopeless [more audience laughter]. The dynamics at work here are so basic that once you understand how they play out in your relationship, they can become a source of strength, rather than a source of division. But for most couples, the differences in their representational styles are under-appreciated and misunderstood. Annette, it must be exasperating when you find yourself in the middle

The Energies

of

Love

Donna Eden & David Feinstein

of an argument for having said things you never said. Next, you’re watching him go into a major retreat. Donna: Tonals can check out totally. They can be looking right at you and not taking in a thing [Annette’s expression affirms this so strongly that the audience roars]. The whole dialogue can be in their heads, so you are not heard at all. On the other hand [turning to Dan], you’re dealing with a visual, so all the bad things you think she is saying may be exactly what she means. [much laughter] David: So part of the trick is to realize that sometimes what you think you’re hearing between the lines, really is what she is saying, but sometimes it isn’t. So there you have it. This is just one of the possible combinations, but chances are that you may be starting to see yourself or your partner reflected in one of these types. The only quick, dependable test we know for determining your primary energetic sensory profile is the one Donna invented all those years ago—but to perform it you need detailed instruction in energy testing. You can see this demonstrated in our Energies of Love DVD program.2 The technique itself is quite simple, and instruction in energy testing is widely available.3 By creating a workable map of your own sensory energetic system, and by understanding your partner’s natural sensory energetic tendencies, you give yourself a tool that is reliable and useful for building intimacy. In the heat of conflict, when it feels as if -§your partner is against you—or even downright Make a pact with your partner to stop, crazy—you can turn to this understanding and look, and listen when step back from your own instinctive reactions. conflict arises. A working knowledge of the sensory systems -§makes it easier for you to give your partner the benefit of the doubt, and to put his or her behavior into the highest possible understanding and light; we call this the high band. Much of the misinterpretation that causes you to direct hurtful, negative, and harmful motivations toward your partner stems directly from a lack of understanding that your partner is a different energy, responding to the same situation as you are, but in a very different way. The great news here is that this means high-banding, giving your partner the benefit of the doubt and thereby shifting the energy, is a habit that can be cultivated. Even if you may lose it in the most intense moments, with practice, the high band can become more of the default position—the place you come back to. But, while grasping these concepts intellectually may help you peg deeper dimensions of your struggles, understanding alone is not

likely to shift the patterns. In order to get to the point of being able to “high-band” a situation in the first place, you have to be able to interrupt your own energetic sensory crisis, the fight-or-flight response to relational stress, and return to a place of relative composure. If two people are within conversational distance, fluctuations in the heart signal of one correspond with fluctuations in the brain waves of the other. This means that when one partner experiences meltdown, the changes in his or her electrical system occur in his or her brain and heart, as well; this, in response, triggers measurable electrical changes in his or her partner’s brain -§Changing the energy and heart. This electrical dissonance makes it becomes a shared extremely difficult to stop the ride, and we realachievement. ized early on in our work that this needed to -§be our first focus in improving intimacy and communication. Not empathy, not analysis, not insight. Conscious intention in working with the four energetic profiles can bring about incredible shifts in chronically dysfunctional relational responses. But in acute situations, when one or both partners are already triggered and understanding has flown out the window, you need concrete techniques to bring the energy back into balance. It is much easier to create a crisis plan when you’re not in the middle of a crisis. This is why we recommend that you and your partner make a rock-solid pact, when you are feeling a strong connection, to stop, look, and listen when conflict arises. We explain this process in detail in our Energies of Love DVD, and in an upcoming book of the same title, but the basic principles are simple—though not necessarily easy. Even if your partner refuses to work with you, you can use these techniques on your own to effect real energetic change. Before reactive, stress-triggered energy patterns can be reined in, the very first thing you must do is to literally stop what you are doing, thinking, and saying. This is harder than it sounds. Every fiber of your being is engaged in a rapidly escalating conflict. You’ve just been insulted, dismissed, or weathered an accusation that no person with any self-respect would leave unanswered. And you are supposed to stop? Impossible! When fight-or-flight hormones are surging through your body and you are caught in your primary sensory mode, a momentum takes over that has its own life. It may feel dreadful, but it is compelling. Stopping at such a moment is the hardest part of this formula. But if you don’t stop, the biochemistry of fight-orflight reflexively takes you over. If, on the other hand, you can honor your pact with one another and shift the agenda from pursuing the conflict to changing the energy, you can break the spell and move into

The Energies

of

Love

Donna Eden & David Feinstein

the biochemistry of tend and befriend. And changing the energy itself becomes a shared achievement. One very simple, physical technique for grounding your energy is called the Three Thumps. Certain points on your body, when tapped with your fingers, will affect your energy field in predictable ways, sending electrochemical impulses to specific regions of your brain and releasing neurotransmitters. By tapping three specific sets of points, you can activate a series of internal responses that will restore you when you are tired or stressed. You can also tap these points at any time during your day that you need a boost. The Three Thumps include: the “K-27” points (the 27th acupuncture points on the kidney meridian), which are located in the tender hollows just beneath your clavicle; the thymus, which is located at the sternum (where gorillas thump); and the spleen “neurolymphatic” points on either side of the ribcage, about four inches beneath your underarms. Among other things, tapping on these points helps your system to metabolize the stress energy that you experience during conflict, so that you can come back into your own center and approach the situation with more calm and compassion. Do not be overly concerned about finding the precise location of each point. If you use several fingers to tap in the vicinity described, you will hit the right spot. Tap hard enough that you hear the tap, but never so hard as to risk bruising yourself. While the Three Thumps technique is done alone (though, preferably, in unison with your partner), another excellent energy balancing exercise, the Spinal Flush, is done by one of you for the other. It is a gift you can give to one another. It not only feels good, it also releases toxins that are generated by the fight-or-flight response back into the lymph system, where they can be eliminated. The Spinal Flush tends to balance each of the meridians, the body’s energy pathways. And, it is a kind act you can do for your partner before you are feeling kind or able to say kind things. 1. Have your partner lie face down, or stand, three or four feet from a wall and lean into it with both hands. This positions the body to remain stable while you apply pressure to your partner’s back. 2. Massage the points down both sides of your partner’s spine (but not directly on the spine), using the thumbs or middle fingers and applying body weight to get strong pressure. While most people can tolerate and will enjoy considerable pressure on these points, check to be sure you are not pressing harder than your partner wants. You will be massaging from the bottom of the neck all the way down to the bottom of the sacrum.

3. Go down the notches along the vertebrae and deeply massage each point. Staying on the point for at least three seconds, move the skin up and down or in a circular motion, with strong pressure.

Upon reaching the sacrum, you can repeat the massage. When completed, “sweep” the energies down your partner’s body from the shoulders, and with open hands, drag it all the way down the legs and off the feet. Repeat the sweep two or three times.



Once you have stopped and redirected the energy flow, you and your partner can move into the next stage of the process by looking at the situation in a manner that respects your partner’s primary mode and expands you beyond your own.

Your automatic, primal response to stress shapes your relationships. It is during the tense times, at least as much as during tender ones, that the foundation of a relationship is set. Keeping your energy balanced and in harmony with your partner’s will allow you to move with more integrity through the difficult moments. Energy techniques are powerful tools for reducing the heat of a conflict. Meanwhile, an emotionally-focused understanding of your fundamental energy type, and of your partner’s, gives you a map of the differences in how you perceive, communicate, argue, love, and want to be loved. The combination of these techniques with this understanding has given couple after couple an inlet to deeper intimacy, and a greater ability to find one another during the inevitable stormy times. 1 This formulation is derived from the time-honored and strikingly sophisticated “five element theory” of traditional Chinese medicine. See, for instance, “The Meridians and The Emotions” in David Feinstein’s Energy Psychology Interactive (Ashland: Innersource, 2004), pp 234–240. 2 Donna Eden and David Feinstein, “The Energies of Love” DVD, available from www.innersource.net. 3 See, for instance, Chapter 2 of Donna Eden’s Energy Medicine (New York: Tarcher/Penguin, 1998).