Remember the dog I wrote about last week? The one who snapped at me several times? I saw him again just the other day for another Whole Energy Body Balance session.
I noticed a difference as soon as I walked in- that hard, hard gaze was softer, and he seemed more at ease. He still was being very careful to position his body so I couldn\’t touch the sore parts in his body though. Such an intelligent dog! So we danced around for a bit. I\’d try to get him to sit beside me, he\’d carefully place himself so I could only stroke his ears, which, of course, is what he liked the most. Today, too, the daughter who is his primary carer and trainer was in the room. So he was on better behaviour, but I could see that he was still not willing to do as I asked.
\”Could you put the lead on him please,\” I asked her. \”And then get him standing, with you holding his head, so I can work on his back from behind him.
We got all set up, and I started to feel into his body – still a world of pain and tension to be released – I could feel his muscles twitching and leapig under the gentle pressure of my fingers. I worked ever so gently, easing into the sore spots. He didn\’t like it, and even lifted his lip with early signs of aggression, but behaved himself when his boss told him to. I worked on him standing for a while – but I had a very sore back myself, and I was finding the position awkward. The mum of the household had come back home while I was working, and I asked them both to get him up onto the table and lying on his side with his back to me. He wasn\’t too keen on this idea, and it took a lot of coaxing and a little gentle manhandling to get him lying down.
\”He\’s not exactly relaxed, is he?\” I said with a smile, pointing to his uppermost front leg, poised up high in the air and rigid.
\”Not very, no!\” she said as she gently restrained him.
I released all along his ribcage in several different ways, and then held one hand at the base of his skull, and the other over his sacrum. I breathed deeply and held a healing space, while directing healing energy through my hands and into his body. After a few minutes of this he took a deep breath and some of the tension relaxed out of his body. Then I worked on his diaphragm, so tight and restricted that it took a long time to help him unwind the tension he\’d stored there. Finally I could release his thoracic inlet and right in under the ribs at the back, I held this sopt and suddenly felt the wedged up rigid, tight and locked muscles dissolve into a sense of space and freedom. At the same time his front leg, which had been slowly relaxing closer to the table, finally relaxed fully and came to rest on the table. During the session his breathing had also changed from a quick, panting breath locked up in the top of his chest to a slow, pulsing rhythm which you could clearly see extending right down to his pelvis and lower abdomen.
He felt now like we\’d done all we could for the day, so we let him get up, and he hopped off the table and came over to me for a pat. He was softer again, softer in his face, his gaze, his whole body language, and he seemed a whole lot more comfortable in his skin.
\”Do you notice how his coat\’s shinier after the session, too?\” I asked them. \”That\’s a sign that the chi, or life force energy, is circulating right through his system in a healthy way.\”
\”It is too!\” she said. \”Thanks so much for doing these sessions with him- we are seeing a real difference in him.\”