The Energetics of Voice Dialogue
The tradition of Voice Dialogue is fundamentally based on the knowledge that we are made up of different parts or pattems.
These parts are recognized, real, and unique in themselves. They can think, express themselves, have their own feelings, and they can feel good or angry towards the ego, depending on how the ego treats them. In this study, the most important emphasis is on their relationships to the physical body and its energy fields.
For example, a subpersonality like the Rational Controller will very likely be related to the head area but may also have a particular connection to the chest and breathing function. It will also relate to particular areas of the aura and the chakra system.
Compared to the Rational Controller, a Vulnerable Child-subpersonality will have a very different physical presence, which will be expressed, not just in the facial area, but in the whole body. In addition, the chakras can be observed to begin to vibrate differently when a person moves into the Vulnerable Child energy pattern.
Exercise with the awareness of body energy
Starting just with this moment, become aware of the energy in your body. How did your body feel today, and how is the energy now?
At the beginning of the day:
- Keep a small notepad to hand and record your entries the rest of the day.
Log any aches, pains, tightness, discomfort, sensation or changes in energy level,
including when they occurred and for how long.
Either during the day or in the evening, focus on each symptom one at a time and ask: - Does it have any message for me?
- Why has it chosen this time to call for my attention?
- Which self or selves lie behind the energy?
- (If appropriate) Which self was urging me to ignore what I was feeling and why?
If you are revisiting a feeling and you are finding it hard to reconnect with, replicate the position your body was in when you first became aware of it.
At the end of the day:
- Choose from this exercise a primary self that feels the strongest. Make sure that you connect with this particular primary self. Now go fully into this energy and allow it to be present in all of your body. Let is grow bigger and bigger. When it’s stil strong, you can let this energy fill the room you are in. And notice what happens. Take your time to notice what happens inside of you. And after a while. Notice what has changed.
- Take your pen and paper and go to the four former questions.
Exercise 1 Walking
- Starting from the standing position, holding the knees slightly bent and the spine straight, slowly start to shift the weight to one leg (the “full” leg) until you feel no weight in the other (the “empty” leg).
- Once the weight is fully on one leg, shift the weight back to the other leg. In continuing to shift the weight from one leg to the other, try to find a natural rhythm, moving like the pendulum of a clock.
- Awareness should be totally in the movement, focusing on what happens to the body as a result of this rhythmic shifting. If you can relax and be aligned while doing it, you will begin to feel a flow of energy, originating in the legs. The more you can relax and let the weight sink totally into each alternate leg, the stronger the flow will be. At some point, the movement will feel as if it is happening totally by itself.
- Now, you can start to lift the “empty” leg and make a step, then sink the weight into the same leg so that it is now “full,” and make another step with the other leg, moving in the rhythm that you have found. Walk in this way, moving from the waist, following this natural rhythm. The fluctuation of “full” and “empty” will activate the energy flow in the entire body.
Remark
This exercise makes people aware of what is called the Yin-Yang principle in T’ai Chi. If you go fully into one polarity, in this case by shifting the weight to one leg, the polarity between the Yin and Yang increases, and the energy at some point has to move back to the other polarity. In T’ai Chi, this walking exercise is the basis of all the other movements and forms that follow. In Voice Dialogue, as has been explained, the Yin-Yang principle really is the key to the work, and a proper understanding and embodiment of this principle by the practitioner gives the work its transformative nature.
Exercise with the chakras
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Exercise with the rational controller
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Exercise with the vulnerable child
Imagine yourself as a young child, bare and unprotected. Then imagine yourself taking the child into your heart and protecting it. And stay with that for a while.