Sometimes I am asked if I am willing to use energy medicine techniques on children. Although the vast majority of my clients are adults, I am always happy to work with children. Children seem to be fascinated with the various methods and tools that I use. They love the soft touch I employ and they often are remarkably responsive to the shifts in their energy systems. Spinning colored crystals and the many different colored stones I may use are another source of interest for them. The young ones are delighted to be put up onto the massage table; in fact, sometimes so delighted that the session is carried out while climbing up and down multiple times.
The key to working with children is being flexible. I follow children just as I do my adult clients in the way that will best serve them. In the case of children, the following is not just on an energetic or emotional level but often on a literal physical level. A little boy may want to look more closely at a particular crystal I have lying on the floor of my studio. So off he goes – in the middle of a particular protocol – and I trail after him to finish what I have started.
I noticed years ago that my young granddaughters loved watching me do my early morning daily energy routines. At a very young age – around 2 years – they would watch wide-eyed as I performed various energy balancing sequences as if they could visually see the energies begin to come into equilibrium. Like newborns who tend to look just beyond their parents’ faces, many young children actually do have the ability to see the energy field around humans, called the aura or biofield. Until children realize that no one around them in our western society talks or thinks about these biofields, sometimes they will mention a color around a person’s head or body. Usually by the age of 4 years, children tend to ignore and disregard what they once noticed so vividly earlier on.
One of the energy exercises that my grandchildren were most excited about was the use of a stainless-steel spoon on the soles of the feet. This grounding exercise helps people to maintain a yin/yang balance by opening up the bottom of the foot to the yin energies of the earth, thus the name “grounding”. Going barefoot in the summer helps people soak up the yin energies as does sitting with the tailbone against the trunk of a tree. However, in the winter snow, being barefoot is out of the question. So, the spooning exercise was a particular hit with the grandchildren in the winter! We made a game of it – sometimes I would spoon their feet and then they would delight in reciprocating on my feet.
Meeting children and young adults where they are at emotionally is also essential. I worked with one young girl in a distance session where she could cuddle up with her mother in her own home and talk with me via the phone. We learned what was bothering her at night that was causing her to have strange dreams and then worked with energy medicine techniques to help alleviate the young girl’s concerns. Of course, it helped that her mother was very familiar with the work, already being a client, and had been introducing various energy medicine exercises to her daughter for some time.
With young adults – teenagers – it is more similar to working with adults in that they don’t wander around the studio but stay lying on the massage table. Sometimes they are reluctant to ask for clarification so I need to be vigilant in listening to what is not being said and figure out a tactful way to ask the correct questions or give the needed explanations. Often the way that I work is very unfamiliar to teenagers and they can be quite skeptical at first. I spend a good deal of time allaying any skepticism by having them feel the different answers that are obtained through muscle testing using their own bodies. They can feel the answers viscerally and this becomes quite intriguing to them. It can open up a whole new way of looking at themselves. It also helps them feel like they have some control over how they feel, think, and sense.
One dramatic example of working with a teenager occurred in the fall when a high school senior was finishing up his college entrance essays and applications. The pressure of completing these tasks was completely overwhelming this young man to the point where he felt unable to move forward. He began to experience anxiety attacks, although he had never had one previously. After spending time in the local ER with the onset of the attacks three times within a couple of weeks, he was referred to me. After some reluctance to open up, the teenager began to see that energy medicine was unlike anything he had experienced before. Simple protocols could help him feel calmer and he could use them whenever he started to feel anxious about the college application process. He never returned to the ER for anxiety and he is currently a junior in college.
Another difference I have observed with children and teenagers is that the time required for shifting old energetic patterns and learning new ways to function can be more rapid than with adults. Often when I work with very young children, they will move their limbs away from my hands when the balancing has occurred. It’s almost as if they instinctively know that the shift to a more beneficial way of functioning has happened and they don’t need any more assistance. It makes me laugh because they are so exquisitely aware and sensitive to what is happening and very direct when they feel they are finished.
Frankly, it is a delight to work with children! My practice will continue to be mostly filled with adult clients but I am happy to work with children on occasion as potential issues come up. Energy medicine is for children too!
