Carolyn Dewey,
Facilitating
Men’s Health
A Polarity Therapy Perspective
From the Ground Floor Up
Carolyn Dewey,
If these pages have found their way into your hands, I thank you for taking the time to read them. By way of introduction, I will simply say that they were written because many people ask me about what I do.
This booklet is one in a series that I have created in response to specific concerns that people share with me. This article on Men’s Health was initially written for and published in June 2000 in "The Upper Valley Guide to Whole Health" Vol.2 No.4, a publication of the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society, Inc.
I welcome your questions, and your referral to those who are looking for greater health and well-being.
Sincerely,
Carolyn
Available for Appointments in local hospitals, your home, or
in Carolyn’s office, Norwich, VT
(802) 649-5442
Facilitating Men’s Health
A Polarity Therapy Perspective
from the Ground Floor Up
This article will examine Polarity Therapy, an energetic health building resource. In particular, I will review how Polarity Therapy can bring some healing to the concerns identified and enlightenment to an aspect that rarely sees the light of day. This is the perineum, the part of our torso that forms the "ground floor," of a strong healthy body.
Men’s Health Concerns
I recently interviewed several people and asked them what their concerns were regarding men’s health.
Spiritual Concerns
Mental Concerns
Emotional Concerns
Physical Concerns
The remainder of this article will illuminate Polarity Therapy as an energetic health building resource. A specific Polarity approach for improving these concerns will be illustrated.
The Polarity Therapy Approach to Health Building
Dr. Randolph Stone, also known as the "Father of Energetic Medicine," developed Polarity Therapy in the mid 1900s. Polarity Therapy has its roots in physical medicine from osteopathy and in ancient energy knowledge from eastern cultures. Polarity practitioners study body work, communication skills, polarity yoga, and nutrition. The American Polarity Therapy Association (APTA), formed in 1985, developed Standards of Practice and a Code of Ethics. APTA’s national registry has grown to twelve hundred members.
The Polarity model defines health as the free flow of energy through all aspects of one’s experience, including spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, relationships with others and our environment. Learning to assume responsibility for one’s own health is a basic concept of Polarity. One must clearly discern the consequences of current habits to be able to make better decisions about one’s health. Therefore, the first thing that Polarity Therapy addresses is awareness of how one’s lifestyle affects health.
Fundamental to Polarity is the concept that the body has the intelligence to create its own optimal health. Intelligent touch from a trained practitioner, energy awareness education, and lifestyle modifications in exercise and nutrition, support life energy to flow through all the body organs, tissues, emotions and thought patterns. This life energy forms a link between the mind and body and aids in resolving emotional disturbances as well as physical imbalances.
When this energy is not flowing freely, "deep and concealed energy blocks cause chronic diseases through spasm of tissue and stasis (lack of movement)." (Dr. Stone) Bruce Burger, Polarity practitioner, educator, and author of Esoteric Anatomy, explains, "We understand energy blocks as excess, confused, and contradictory mental and emotional impulses to the musculature. This discord creates tension and ... affects attunement with the Soul. An energy block defines a place where it hasn’t been safe to experience ... to feel." He continues, "When it is not safe for our feelings to flow outward into expression, ... chronic fear and emotional tension lodge in the pelvis."
Conscious touch and presence affect the human energy field, restoring a free flow of energy. "Blocked energy is cleared when it is safe to be present and feeling in our bodies. ... Compassionate touch through polarity energy balancing facilitates a profound safety. ... In this sacred space, clients are guided to experience that it is safe to be present in their bodies. ... and safe to be present with their feelings. ... Presence releases blocked energy." (Burger)
Conscious presence and knowledge of major energy flow patterns, enable a Polarity practitioner to use appropriate touch to facilitate relaxation. This relaxation also creates a sense of deep calm out of which emerges clarity, new insights, and empowerment. As the energy flows freely within the body, chronic blocks of tension that exist in the muscles, bones and internal organs begin to disappear. The result is the Soul finding a free expression through the mind and body of the individual, restoring optimal health.
How Polarity Therapy Addresses Men’s Health Concerns
In the Polarity energy anatomy model, the term "polarity" refers to the dual nature of energy flow. Outward directional movement illustrates how a thought held in the mind, when moved into the world of action, takes on substance and form in the physical world. This movement is ‘yang’ or masculine due to its expanding, building, active nature. The complementary (feminine/yin) evolutionary movement from the body to the mind, reconnects self to a higher Source. This movement is contracting, cleansing, and receptive. In a healthy person, energy movement is cyclical. "In nature, all life grows through these complementary processes." (Burger)
As identified earlier, the most prevalent men’s health concerns relate to congestion of energy flow in the pelvic area. It is in the downward yang phase of energy movement where energy is most likely to stagnate causing problems of resistance, tension and constipation. When energy does not flow, we easily become exhausted, compromising our potential for self-realization.
The pelvic area is key to health. Our vital force resides in and flows from this region. Our "seat of emotions" holds a cellular imprint of childhood issues, survival instincts, power impulses, creative drive, and sexuality. The perineal floor, which includes the muscles in and between the buttocks, literally holds these "deep seated" feelings and unconscious emotions. The pelvis is also the home for the organs of cleansing, renewal, regeneration, and healing. The downward flow of energy rules elimination. Tension and stagnation in the pelvic region contribute to physical problems affecting the prostate gland, sexual performance, and constipation.
A person out of balance in this area may feel uprooted, forced, restless, and lacking a sense of belonging. He may become anxious, depressed, numb, withdrawn, negative, defensive, and unable to look after himself and others or to adapt to change. The result is a diffuse fear of life, awkward and uncertain behaviors, sexual difficulties, and latent rejections of any helpful support. "Pelvic tension may indicate gender issues relating to giving and receiving emotional and sexual nourishment. ... The pelvis rules the way we connect with others and nourish ourselves. When we feel unsafe, we tense the pelvis." (Burger)
Polarity Therapy has a unique potential to bring relief to symptoms. Releasing the energy current from below to flow upward, reconnects the cycle, releases chronic tension and unexpressed emotions, and restores health. "We release emotional fixations from the past, and restore the integrity of the nervous system" (Burger)
The potential benefits for men are profound. The effects are subtle, penetrating, lasting, and pleasant. Dr. Stone’s illuminates benefits of this approach. "Perineal technique works like a miracle. ... It often marks a turning point in the client’s life, where the past is released and healthy elimination is established. ... This work has marvelous results for low back pain, sciatica, sleeplessness, neck tension, respiratory symptoms, liver, stomach and digestive disturbances. ... Stasis (congestion) is released by this relaxation, nervous tension balanced, and circulation improved because of the energy release."
Summary of Polarity’s Benefits for Men’s Health
In general, Polarity Therapy deeply nurtures and supports inner processes to regulate and restore balance to mind and body.
In particular, Polarity can have profound benefits on men’s primary health concerns, in a manner that is relaxing and restorative.
Benefits of Polarity Therapy may include:
NOTE: Polarity is not a substitute for regular medical care. However, Polarity Therapy can be extremely valuable in addressing these issues and in creating a greater sense of well-being.
Inspirations
When you have exhausted all possibilities, it is time to find another one.
Eleanor Roosevelt
If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
Albert Einstein
The purpose of healing is not to be forever happy; that is impossible. The purpose of healing is to be awake. And to live while you are alive instead of dying while you are alive. Healing is about being broken and whole at the same time.
Geneen Roth
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. Albert Einstein
To the being fully alive, the future is not ominous, but a promise, it surrounds the present as a halo.
John Dewey
To treat your life as less than a miracle, is to give up on it.
Wendell Berry
The only sin is not to answer the call of your destiny.
David Bohm
The good news about chaos is that it is the primal state which precedes creation, a place of fertile possibility that awakens potentials to be fully awake and alive.
Nothing can change from one reality to another until it first goes into nothing - caterpillar no more, yet, butterfly not yet. John Wellwood
Something stood still in my soul and I started to attend.
D. H. Lawrence
All this is Scary, you could loose it, you will loose it. It is what is so appealing about it because, our soul feels caged and we want to break out of that soul cage, to realize our true nature and destiny ... when you feel how rigid you have become, you stimulate the desire to become more flexible. This desire is needed to move out of the cage. John Wellwood
When we are centered, we are alert, open, and capable of effective action. It is our capacity to re-balance, to be flexible and fluid in constant change that makes us more powerful.
unknown
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.
And try to love the questions themselves.
Do not seek the answers, that cannot be given you, because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will gradually without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answers.
Rilke
About Carolyn Dewey, MS, RPP
Carolyn Dewey is a Registered Polarity Therapist in private practice in Norwich Vermont. She regularly teaches classes in Conscious Touch for Partners through Dartmouth-Hitchcock Women’s Health Resource Center. Please call her with any questions at (802) 649-5442.
Credentials:
Nationally Registered Polarity Therapy Practitioner
Healing Touch Practitioner (Level 3)
Reiki Practitioner (Second Degree, Usui Usui tradition)
Candidate for Ph.D. in Energetic Medicine
Training in Craniosacral Therapy and Myofascial Integration
Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist
Former Business Consultant and Medical Practice Manager.
Author of business procedure, training & program planning manuals and numerous articles on Health Building.
Other Offerings:
Carolyn regularly addresses community groups, businesses, medical training centers and health clubs on topics and techniques related to Energetic Medicine. The following are examples of presentations she has made or would be happy to offer:
Energetic First Aide for Everyone
Polarity Relaxing and Balancing Techniques
Introduction to Your Energetic Anatomy
Conscious Touch for Couples
Freeing Your Creative Energy Flow Enhancing Clarity and Focus.
Creating Healing Resonances with Reflexology and Polarity
I listen and respond to your body through gentle rocking, stretching, and conscious, pressure-sensitive touch. Your consciousness expands and you become more and more aware of what you are experiencing. You learn to cultivate the free flow of life supporting thought patterns which result in greater health, happiness and harmony. When the life-force energy flows freely within the body, chronic blocks of tension that reside in the muscles, bones and internal organs disappear. The end result is not just physical fitness, but rather the soul finding a free expression through the mind and body of the individual, restoring optimal health.
Symptoms of Inner Peace
Be on the lookout for symptoms of inner peace. The hearts of a great many have already been exposed to inner peace and it is possible that people everywhere could come down with it in epidemic proportions. This could pose a serious threat to what has, up to now, been a fairly stable condition of conflict in the world.
Some signs and symptoms of inner peace:
** WARNING ** WARNING ** WARNING **
If you have some or all of the above symptoms, please be advised that your condition of inner peace may be so far advanced as to not be curable. If you are exposed to anyone exhibiting any of these symptoms, remain exposed only at your own risk.