Head and heal

The words “intuitive healer” are fraught with complicated connotations. On the one hand, it’s really easy for the pragmatic to be suspicious of something that sounds somehow related to “faith healing.” On the other hand, these are days when conventional wisdom as presented by authoritative figures is being undermined, which allows for a certain open-mindedness among the skeptical. At any rate, Dr. Young-Sowers will teach two classes at the Lakeside Community Church on Feb. 4-5. For times and costs, call 826-0566.

What exactly is intuitive healing?

I named it intuitive healing because you need to be using your intuition to be able to evaluate what is going on for the person who is sitting opposite you. The person … can be your partner or your kids or a client or a patient. It means to be able to use your intuition to assess a situation with how you’re feeling and how the person … is feeling. We tend to think of intuition as part of our everyday thinking—you find a parking place or you know your mother is going to call. But I teach intuition, and so intuition means going from your everyday thinking and your valuation of what you think is what is in front of you to your own inner quiet, deep-self place where you can better sense, from a place of consciousness, what this person in front of you needs or what you need in your own life.

So you’re not talking physical healing, you’re talking on an emotional level?

I’m talking both because the model, the Stillpoint model, that I developed, I developed over 25-27 years of working with people and realizing how directly what we feel, what we think, what we believe is tied to the health of physical systems. This model helps whether you are a mom and a dad or whether you are a massage therapist or a physician or a therapist—how our physical bodies responds in direct relationship to specific feelings and emotions, and beneath all that, how we can turn on our own spiritual energy that gives our physical body a different set of messages. For example: So many women have thyroid imbalances. In this model, the thyroid gland, which is a little butterfly gland in your throat, is part of the endocrine system. So each of your 11 systems I’ve correlated with a set of emotional attitudes and beliefs and a spiritual dynamic that says when we get quiet and awaken our vision, for example, then our body gets a greater sense of harmony. So, the thyroid is part of the endocrine system, the endocrine system is governed most directly by how we feel about our family of origin, and it deals with having your own vision. It means if you are sitting opposite somebody, you know whether it’s their thyroid gland or whether it’s their pancreas … or their adrenal gland—all those different aspects of our body come under the major heading of “endocrine.” So when we turn that key and say to the person, “What’s your sense of your own vision; do you have permission to even have your vision, what did your parents want? What does your head tell you you want? What does your heart tell you you want? Intuitive understanding means you’re helping the person go to their deep intuition, their consciousness, to be able to help themselves have the wisdom they need for healing—whether it’s physically or emotionally.

So it’s not necessarily something you do to somebody? It’s how somebody looks at themselves.

That’s right. It’s something that you can articulate to the client sitting across from you. You can move them in the right direction. For example, for talking about their family of origin, practices that help them recognize what are the learned behaviors, what’s inside of them, what do they really love and want? We live in that duality, what we think we need to be to the world to be successful and to measure up. And then there’s an inner, quieter, place called “spirit.” That’s where our deep intuition lives, and we know a great deal about what we need. And our body picks up on this new sense of awareness and peacefulness and empowerment.