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| neutral, centred and grounded the Twilight Samurai way... |
To me this means not pumping energy out, nor drawing it in, keeping our personal energy to ourselves and cultivating it. Allowing a flow of universal healing energy is different and can be done in a neutral personal state. For the therapist, I think "neutral" means not trying to "fix" the patient, and certainly not using personal energy to do that, but listening to them with you ears and heart and so helping their own healing process along.
Think of someone who’s a difficult charcter in your everyday life. Imagine what it would be like if you could detach from their barrage of demands/dramas/unwanted advice/eternal need to be heard, whatever it is, and be neutral with them. The more difficult they are, the more you can learn about being neutral.
CENTRED
Your neutral energy field is centred on your own centre, often this is thought of as a point two fingers’ breadth below your navel. It may be distilled into the tiniest point or extent out all around to encompass the whole universe but it’s centred on your centre. When you move, your movement flows from your centre outwards then returns but you always stay centred in your centre. You can communicate with someone on the other side of the world and still stay centred. Lao Tzu: "A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving,” or, "The good traveller never leaves home."
GROUNDED
To me this means being present in your body, aware of everything around you and being connected energetically with the Earth. I would say it’s relatively easy to connect with higher, universal energies but harder to do this in a grounded way.
THE TWILIGHT SAMURAI
I often connect what I've picked up from studying martial arts, mostly Tai Chi Chuan, with practising therapy - helping people to cope better with stressful situations through being more neutral, centred and grounded. In the Twilight Samurai, the hero finds himself in a duel but refuses to be drawn into his opponent's anger. And determined not to hurt him, although his opponent is armed with a samurai sword and he is armed only with a stick, the Twilight Samurai blocks all his attacks and finally knocks him out with a blow to the head. Not that you want to see life as a fight, if you see it as a fight you've already lost... More about all this in Chi Kung Plus.
