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Page 183
emotions in our bodies, disrupting our health. To a certain extent, I view illness as resulting from a block in the flow of a person's vitalizing life forces, which a spiritual healer may be able to restimulate.
I have learned to be patient if more than ten minutes goes by and I am unable to attune to the patient. I just make myself comfortable, listen to the beautiful music which I turn on when possible, and maintain my expectancy. Inability to connect formerly caused me great doubt and self-chastisement about thinking there was anything to this ''spiritual healing thing." It has taken me many years to become secure enough to stay with the process, even if I am not able to get the characteristic feelings that indicate to me that a connection is made. I usually allow forty-five minutes per client, and for some people on their first visit, a good deal of that time is spent simply helping the client become comfortable with me. They must open up to the possibility that some healing mechanism we don't understand might occur and actually be efficacious.
Once the "flow" is initiated, it usually feels good to the patient, and the connection seems to maintain itself as he or she becomes progressively more relaxed. It is interesting to me that often a person's disease symptoms change radically in the course of a few minutes of treatment. Changes in skin color, breathing rate, body temperature, mood, and energy level are outcomes that I have observed. On many occasions, a patient's fever abates during the healing interaction. Often, those in great discomfort from pain, chills, or uncomfortable body position due to slings, casts, IVs or the like fall asleep during a healing treatment.
Sometimes patients are not aware of changes in their condition immediately after a healing treatment, but they feel very sleepy. After they have slept and reawakened, their healing process will seem to have greatly accelerated. This has been the case with children with the chicken pox and measles, and young adults that I have treated who had scabies or staph infections. In all of these cases, the discomfort and surface area of skin affected by the rashes greatly diminished during post-treatment slumber. Sometimes chronic conditions decrease in severity or go into remission during the week after one or more treatments. I used to be troubled that

 
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