Jonathan's Testimonial

Jonathan's Testimonial

2 August 2002

Deborah Cohen’s energy therapy was not short of an unbelievable experience. So that my description can be grounded in a point of view, I’ll briefly describe my previous experiences.

I am a fairly driven person, obsessively centering on projects, doing a lot of things at once, working-walking-driving-being-communicating-being-with-self at various states of diet, sleep, responsibility, possiblity space, day, career path. I engage in some philosphical thought and discussion with others. I have done Yoga and worked out regularly since college. I consider myself to be in very good physical shape, doing exercise alone, with trainers, and in classes. I have been injured in the past, and have been through life-giving experiences from rehabilitative healers. I spend a lot of time hiking and have covered a pretty good amount of ground. I have traveled to a few other and less developed countries, and I have lived in several different areas and latitudes of the US. I play piano, write, and meditate. Different dreams and daydreams speak to me in different and incredible ways that compel me well to listen. I have experienced a variety of such natural physical and metaphysical states of feeling and being as would be found in this lifestyle, solitarily and in groups, but never alone. So, until this healing session, I was pretty sure I had experienced enough to get an idea of what most natural physical and metaphysical states could or would be, if I hadn’t been in one of them already. I even imagined myself capable of as much as potentially, with just a little stretch beyond the possible, of being able to choose my experiences. Yet I always hope, and know within, that there is much more to learn than the basic human arrogance offers to pitch me with its lowering irreverence of been-there-done-that. Choosing and editing experiences is, in reality, most often fear of learning more; without learning we become mundane, watch out for mold. (Don’t) hold your breath for adventure and the world we are scared of. Breathe slowly and regularly and you can handle anything.

TV and movies are cool and emotionally educational, showing us almost too soon what seems to be the gamut of modern human experience. Wishing for more than broken concrete in stories all-too short, and learning to be brave in my unabashed admiration for the inner force of heroes, I often wonder and imagine back to a world that existed before radio, television or real transportation. Something that pre-existed modern religion in simple hunter-gatherer days, where all the magic of day was found on the plain and in the forest and in the body, in a jumping fish, in the wind over the skin and water in roots of plants; and where the magic of the night leapt from a campfire in daring flashes to conceive of what could be. There, I believe, in the natural social origins, the inner natures of the human animal were freer than today, for our emotional self was – and is – at once our bloom, beauty and survival.

I believe that there are spiritual teachers who have physically, with mind and body, learned these gifts, and who have kept them sacred, passing them down from generation to generation. I believe that Deborah has likely passed to me some of the timeless healing of the earth. I have seen a new world opened to me, the world of the free mind and body, and I have learned the physical that I never thought or even imagined possible. I will say that, on the way home from the treatment, my spirit roared. After I went to sleep that night, it took a couple of days for the effects to settle in. Here’s the new world I now seem to live in.

Fluid Movement: As if I work out twice a day, my emotions, thoughts, body and organs are fluid, not stiff or stuck.

Energy: I have not had this much energy since the age of perhaps 7, and I was a hyper-active kid. I have energy all day, and energy at night. I am not wiped out by my day. I am ready for more, come-and-get-it, I’ve got more if you can take it, yes I’ve worked all day, what of it? I’ve had this energy for five days straight.

Sleep: I fall asleep fast, and when I wake up, I am ready with energy. I don’t want to put my head back down. Of course, I have my reasonable 7-8 hours, but there is a big difference.

Body Release: There has been tremendous physical release in bodily organs.

Clarity: I don’t remember a week of emotional clarity like the one I’ve just had since I spent a summer in the rainforest in Belize in 1992. But the clarity now is stronger. I’m afraid I have to say this is the most clarity I’ve ever had in my life. My emotions speak to me without having to feel for my stomach’s reaction. They just speak. So clear are some of the answers that I am rationally afraid to act to quickly on what appears to be soul-truth. It’s not a mental thing, it’s not an emotional thing, it’s both. I believe women will understand this idea better than men, as they have more cross-hemisphere firings, which I believe have just been increased. I believe neurological pathways have just been straightened out into straight line logic paths instead of circuitous socially induced paths; while I am no doctor, this is my closest explanation.

Bravery: Like after a three-hour workout state of euphoric exhaustion, I am not afraid to sit comfortably in my own emotional space and skin during the workday, as it is my own space, body, and not anyone else’s domain. I do not alienate others, and can visually communicate directly without fear or anxiety of any source. But it is not an exhausted state of surrender to my own domain and space, without which I might willingly give up space to others. It is actually a very gentle but solid and firm declaration of my space, while as natural to my soul and common social acceptance as breathing.

Communication: I am able to communicate perfectly. No one misunderstands, nothing is over-communicated, nothing is under-communicated. Understanding is imparted, understanding is gained. Formerly overlord emotions are checked to their reasonable and do not occupy extended domains. It’s not a talking, not visual, not body language, it’s all of them, just a total self-being thing. It seems to be the ultimate communicative state of self.

Issues: All right, we all have them. Don’t try to say you don’t. Something got in from someone who could get me and stirred up the pot. I got angry, negative, retreated to my old blackened grounds with my old stuff lying around. And then a conversation took place that was probably the most unbelievably healing conversation I’ve had in ten years. It wasn’t euphoric, it wasn’t forgiving, it wasn’t anything. It was just people coming to an understanding, really listening and understanding, without trying too hard to do it. The understanding wasn’t conceptual or heady, and wasn’t wordless hanging out together for lack of words. It was just a conversation, it was pretty new, and it was mine to keep, (and it might have even been theirs too. I sense it was.) I never thought I would feel so comfortable with that person in our state of common understanding. Yet our worldviews will always be different; worlds, personalities, and searches apart. There was no fear in the discussion, and there was real empathy, and I have no fear of backpedaling.

Emotional clearing: Deborah suggested to me that I had a couple of emotions that needed to be cleared. I had worked on these for quite some time with appropriate earnest; I hated to think they could still be there, yet in the face of the overpowering benevolence of the possiblity of a phyiscal healing of these, and seeing Deborah’s confident knowing, I admitted I did probably still have those emotions to some degree. I mentioned that I thought I had worked on them and had achieved a decent level of dealing. But in fact yes, I did, why not. The whole thing was a little embarrassing, I must say, but as Kennedy said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

It turned out my bets on Cohen and Kennedy were good. I did not know what it was to be clear of an emotional blockage until the blockage was knocked out. I didn’t actually see that it was blocking me in my real life until the blockage went away. Besides everything I mentioned above, work-wise I was more productive, and more effortless, than I had been since perhaps age 21. I could still hear the same thoughts, but they didn’t give me pause or moment of concern. They just passed as I did my things and kept on going. I gently realized that this was actually different behavior for me than before. You can’t really understand what the river is like for the fish blocked by a dam or unblocked and free-flowing by just looking down from the top of the mountain and reading some science. You need to have ridden a free river to feel its power. It’s the difference. To be a human, it’s not logical, it’s not up there in management, it’s in the feel, which we learn by physical experience.

I don’t pretend to believe that I am really through these blockages. I would like to continue these treatments and see what the progressive states of feeling and being are really like.

All the best to you on your own search.

2 August 2002

Deborah Cohen’s energy therapy was not short of an unbelievable experience. So that my description can be grounded in a point of view, I’ll briefly describe my previous experiences.

I am a fairly driven person, obsessively centering on projects, doing a lot of things at once, working-walking-driving-being-communicating-being-with-self at various states of diet, sleep, responsibility, possiblity space, day, career path. I engage in some philosphical thought and discussion with others. I have done Yoga and worked out regularly since college. I consider myself to be in very good physical shape, doing exercise alone, with trainers, and in classes. I have been injured in the past, and have been through life-giving experiences from rehabilitative healers. I spend a lot of time hiking and have covered a pretty good amount of ground. I have traveled to a few other and less developed countries, and I have lived in several different areas and latitudes of the US. I play piano, write, and meditate. Different dreams and daydreams speak to me in different and incredible ways that compel me well to listen. I have experienced a variety of such natural physical and metaphysical states of feeling and being as would be found in this lifestyle, solitarily and in groups, but never alone. So, until this healing session, I was pretty sure I had experienced enough to get an idea of what most natural physical and metaphysical states could or would be, if I hadn’t been in one of them already. I even imagined myself capable of as much as potentially, with just a little stretch beyond the possible, of being able to choose my experiences. Yet I always hope, and know within, that there is much more to learn than the basic human arrogance offers to pitch me with its lowering irreverence of been-there-done-that. Choosing and editing experiences is, in reality, most often fear of learning more; without learning we become mundane, watch out for mold. (Don’t) hold your breath for adventure and the world we are scared of. Breathe slowly and regularly and you can handle anything.

TV and movies are cool and emotionally educational, showing us almost too soon what seems to be the gamut of modern human experience. Wishing for more than broken concrete in stories all-too short, and learning to be brave in my unabashed admiration for the inner force of heroes, I often wonder and imagine back to a world that existed before radio, television or real transportation. Something that pre-existed modern religion in simple hunter-gatherer days, where all the magic of day was found on the plain and in the forest and in the body, in a jumping fish, in the wind over the skin and water in roots of plants; and where the magic of the night leapt from a campfire in daring flashes to conceive of what could be. There, I believe, in the natural social origins, the inner natures of the human animal were freer than today, for our emotional self was – and is – at once our bloom, beauty and survival.

I believe that there are spiritual teachers who have physically, with mind and body, learned these gifts, and who have kept them sacred, passing them down from generation to generation. I believe that Deborah has likely passed to me some of the timeless healing of the earth. I have seen a new world opened to me, the world of the free mind and body, and I have learned the physical that I never thought or even imagined possible. I will say that, on the way home from the treatment, my spirit roared. After I went to sleep that night, it took a couple of days for the effects to settle in. Here’s the new world I now seem to live in.

Fluid Movement: As if I work out twice a day, my emotions, thoughts, body and organs are fluid, not stiff or stuck.

Energy: I have not had this much energy since the age of perhaps 7, and I was a hyper-active kid. I have energy all day, and energy at night. I am not wiped out by my day. I am ready for more, come-and-get-it, I’ve got more if you can take it, yes I’ve worked all day, what of it? I’ve had this energy for five days straight.

Sleep: I fall asleep fast, and when I wake up, I am ready with energy. I don’t want to put my head back down. Of course, I have my reasonable 7-8 hours, but there is a big difference.

Body Release: There has been tremendous physical release in bodily organs.

Clarity: I don’t remember a week of emotional clarity like the one I’ve just had since I spent a summer in the rainforest in Belize in 1992. But the clarity now is stronger. I’m afraid I have to say this is the most clarity I’ve ever had in my life. My emotions speak to me without having to feel for my stomach’s reaction. They just speak. So clear are some of the answers that I am rationally afraid to act to quickly on what appears to be soul-truth. It’s not a mental thing, it’s not an emotional thing, it’s both. I believe women will understand this idea better than men, as they have more cross-hemisphere firings, which I believe have just been increased. I believe neurological pathways have just been straightened out into straight line logic paths instead of circuitous socially induced paths; while I am no doctor, this is my closest explanation.

Bravery: Like after a three-hour workout state of euphoric exhaustion, I am not afraid to sit comfortably in my own emotional space and skin during the workday, as it is my own space, body, and not anyone else’s domain. I do not alienate others, and can visually communicate directly without fear or anxiety of any source. But it is not an exhausted state of surrender to my own domain and space, without which I might willingly give up space to others. It is actually a very gentle but solid and firm declaration of my space, while as natural to my soul and common social acceptance as breathing.

Communication: I am able to communicate perfectly. No one misunderstands, nothing is over-communicated, nothing is under-communicated. Understanding is imparted, understanding is gained. Formerly overlord emotions are checked to their reasonable and do not occupy extended domains. It’s not a talking, not visual, not body language, it’s all of them, just a total self-being thing. It seems to be the ultimate communicative state of self.

Issues: All right, we all have them. Don’t try to say you don’t. Something got in from someone who could get me and stirred up the pot. I got angry, negative, retreated to my old blackened grounds with my old stuff lying around. And then a conversation took place that was probably the most unbelievably healing conversation I’ve had in ten years. It wasn’t euphoric, it wasn’t forgiving, it wasn’t anything. It was just people coming to an understanding, really listening and understanding, without trying too hard to do it. The understanding wasn’t conceptual or heady, and wasn’t wordless hanging out together for lack of words. It was just a conversation, it was pretty new, and it was mine to keep, (and it might have even been theirs too. I sense it was.) I never thought I would feel so comfortable with that person in our state of common understanding. Yet our worldviews will always be different; worlds, personalities, and searches apart. There was no fear in the discussion, and there was real empathy, and I have no fear of backpedaling.

Emotional clearing: Deborah suggested to me that I had a couple of emotions that needed to be cleared. I had worked on these for quite some time with appropriate earnest; I hated to think they could still be there, yet in the face of the overpowering benevolence of the possiblity of a phyiscal healing of these, and seeing Deborah’s confident knowing, I admitted I did probably still have those emotions to some degree. I mentioned that I thought I had worked on them and had achieved a decent level of dealing. But in fact yes, I did, why not. The whole thing was a little embarrassing, I must say, but as Kennedy said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself.

It turned out my bets on Cohen and Kennedy were good. I did not know what it was to be clear of an emotional blockage until the blockage was knocked out. I didn’t actually see that it was blocking me in my real life until the blockage went away. Besides everything I mentioned above, work-wise I was more productive, and more effortless, than I had been since perhaps age 21. I could still hear the same thoughts, but they didn’t give me pause or moment of concern. They just passed as I did my things and kept on going. I gently realized that this was actually different behavior for me than before. You can’t really understand what the river is like for the fish blocked by a dam or unblocked and free-flowing by just looking down from the top of the mountain and reading some science. You need to have ridden a free river to feel its power. It’s the difference. To be a human, it’s not logical, it’s not up there in management, it’s in the feel, which we learn by physical experience.

I don’t pretend to believe that I am really through these blockages. I would like to continue these treatments and see what the progressive states of feeling and being are really like.

All the best to you on your own search.