Essential Energy with Cyndi Dale
Originally published in Energy Magazine: The official Publication of the Healing Touch Program September/October Issue. Essential Energy with Cyndi DaleTouch From The Heart, Touching Our Elders Last fall, I spent Thanksgiving vacation in the emergency room and hospital. On the lighter side, I fully experienced the truth of the phrase, “Hospital food isn’t much to write home about.” Who knew one could ruin canned cranberries? It made me feel better about my own cooking, especially the Thanksgiving I had forgotten to turn on the oven. That year we skipped the turkey and fixings altogether. On the more depressed side, I didn’t have much appetite anyway. My mother had fallen and injured herself, thereby starting the long and painful slide from independent to assisted living. Imagine my surprise to find a posting for Healing Touch on the chaplain’s door. “Oh yes,” asserted the floor nurse, “We’re all fans of Healing Touch.” During the next few weeks, I discovered that many of our area’s senior’s facilities offered some version of Healing Touch, massage, or Reiki; some form of touch that heals. Minnesota might be a little off the grid for many folk, but we’re right up there with complementary care. The need is stupendous. Touch itself is a stand-alone need. Infants deprived of touch fail to thrive; about 100 years ago, 99 percent of babies in American orphanages died because they weren’t touched. Conversely, touch truly does heal, as proven in a recent study. When massaged three times a day for 15 minutes each time, babies with a high chance of infant mortality or developmental disorders gained 47 percent more weight than infants who were not massaged. Older ages also benefit from healthy touch. In one study, children and teens with adjustment disorders, upon received massage, became markedly less anxious and troubled than their counterparts. Lacking human contact, might we all turn our heads to the walls, perhaps to seek the window facing Heaven, the place from which we came? To touch is to affirm life, to share care, and nourish intimacy. It’s to bolster our immune system, improve our sleep, and create true communion. Healing Touch goes a step further, as it offers even more. To touch the soul is to create more spirit in this physical world, and it is this, which heals. So what population is probably the least touched? Think of how many of our elders have lost their life partners and friends. The lucky ones are visited by relatives. Most are not. Lack of mobility, either due to physical illness or loss of driving privileges, creates isolation. Those in nursing homes or hospice are dependent on their caregivers, who are often poorly trained and sometimes, neglectful. Who is touching these individuals, our Elders? Who is even available to do so? This question is rather depressing, as the numbers of elderly grow each year. The percentage of elderly amongst the total US population has tripled since 1900 and is expected to double between now and 2030. Who is going to care for these people, the Elders on the way? Who is going to touch us in such as way that we know our-selves as nourished, nurtured, and attended? Healing Touch professionals are in an enviable and vital position. To touch another human being is an honor. To provide curative touch—trained and directed love—is to honor another. To provide this gift of the spirit to one in dire need is to not only answer a prayer, but to become the prayer. Personally I’d like to find a Healing Touch professional on every hospital room ward; in every hospice center; and staffing the emergency rooms. I’d like to hear about Healing Touch professionals included on medical missions trips and housed on Alzheimer’s Wards. And you know, my sense is that this prayer just might be answered, because Healing Touch is already responding. It is hearing the need of humanity and putting the “kind” back into “human-kind.” It is following the command set forth by leaders including Abraham J. Heschel, who challenged us all with these words. A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incur-able, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture. About the author: Cyndi Dale is the author of The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy, and eight other bestselling books on energy healing, including The Complete Book of Chakra Healing. She has worked with over 30,000 clients in the past 20 years. To learn more about Cyndi, her work, books and products please visit: www.cyndidale.com
© 2009 Cyndi Dale/Essential Energy • All Rights Reserved
November 16th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Cyndi,
I’ve recently discovered your book, “The Complete Book of Chakra Healing” and it is excellent! Not many books give a proper discussion of Chakras 8 through 12 so I found yours to be extremely knowledgeable and helpful to my practice.
The article on touch in orphanages, with teens and the elderly is so poignant having lost my mother 2 years ago. While she was in assisted living and the skilled nursing unit of her “retirement community,” or the “old age home” as she liked to call it, I provided her with Healing Touch almost every time I visited. That was quite often as I worked nearby. The nurses were interested in what I was doing and I taught one of her nurses several techniques. She was “too busy” to provide my mother with a short 5 minute pain drain which I felt was appalling. Imagine being able to help ease someone’s pain and thinking something else is more important. I do understand that there were many people with needs there but I’m sure there was surely a day and time where she could have provided Healing Touch. How much better my mother would have felt when I could not be there.
The nurses and clerks on the nursing home side would often hug and kiss my mother and her face would light up. She loved it! Just this minute or two of love made the difference for her. So your article is well taken.
I wish as you do that a Healing Touch practitioner or student could be in every nursing home. As often as I tried to get a HT presentation to the head nurse there was always some obstacle or project that had more priority. It’s such a struggle. I hope for the day when Healing Touch or energy work is readily available to our elderly where ever they may reside.