The Power of an Image
Images as the Imaginations Path to Healing
“Images are not just passive testimonies but possess an active
semantic power (intrinsic power) that turns them into visual
agents or ‘quasi-living organisms.’ They act to frame our
perception of the world, . . .”
—W. J. T. Mitchell
Eleanor came to see me because of her constant need for recognition and validation. These needs created anxiety and distress, which resulted in an unwanted self-soothing behavior of daily excessive drinking to manage her life. I suggested that we work on this pattern using an energy healing process called the Illumination. I had Eleanor focus on this pattern of distress and her unwanted behavior and blow it into a stone. My assessment revealed that the pattern was being held in her root chakra.
Following one of our sessions, Eleanor shared:
“I saw myself in a boat. I saw an old boat that I had left and noticed that I had left some things behind in that old boat. Parting with things had always been difficult for me. I left my old stuff behind and shoved off to move forward in my new boat. This session was a critical turning point. I was able to start shifting my thoughts to a belief that what I shoved away from me in the old boat would not be missed.”
Eleanor’s need for constant recognition and validation was related to an underlying anxiety, which she attempted to resolve by doing things that gave her the desired recognition and validation. It was also a way for her to feel like she was enough. Eleanor’s pattern of needing recognition and validation began in childhood. She grew up in a poor neighborhood and experienced a lot of shame because of her family’s financial situation. As an adult looking back, she could now see that her family was actually some of the richest people in that poor neighborhood, but she couldn’t see that as a child. The child within her continued to act from the feeling that she wasn’t enough because of the poverty she lived in. Eleanor therefore spent a lot of time and money taking care of others and trying to fix their problems, especially her grown children.
When there is a long-standing and chronic anxiety disorder, it is important to reset the fight-flight-freeze mechanism. A history of trauma or a feeling of a constant threat to the self or sense of security can leave the fight-flight-freeze mechanism on alert and on guard, as if waiting for the next threat. To correct this and return the mechanism to its natural, healthy response state, I must reset it.
I placed my hands on Eleanor’s back at the level of her heart chakra and invited her to imagine that she was dropping an energy cord from her heart down into the earth to connect with the heartbeat of the earth. As her heartbeat attuned to that of the earth, I had her imagine that she was being sourced by Mother Earth, pulling energy and the earth’s life force up into her heart. I then moved one of my hands to her second chakra and ran energy back and forth between her second and fourth chakras while speaking to those energy centers, letting them know that the danger was past and that they could relax. I then rebalanced all her energy centers.
Following that energy session, Eleanor reported that she purchased a sterling silver charm of a boat and wore it as a reminder that she had parted ways with her previously uninvestigated beliefs.
Eleanor experienced a remarkable shift thanks to that one energy session. She stopped drinking her nightly bottles of wine, which had been her practice for almost five years. Over time, she was able to stop “rescuing” her children and began setting better boundaries.
Eleanor reported:
“Clearing my energy field and understanding specifically that I am not in control or responsible for the journeys of my several children has been difficult. Historically, I have seen children as the belongings of a mother. I have discovered that is not my role. I need to experience my own journey in a unique way and even try to understand that my children’s decisions may impact me, but I am not in control of that, and it is not my responsibility to be in control.
“My healing is still happening. I have completely cut out some of the things that have been harmful to me. I have sustained this for almost five years. I realize that I cannot get back in that old boat and that throughout my lifetime I will continue to move into other new boats and leave the old ways behind. I’ve noticed that some things are now so far down the river that I cannot even imagine ever seeing the things I released ever being a part of me again.
“I am different. I do not seek nearly as much validation as I used to. In my work, I deal with very sick and dying patients. I know that I will be with them in their boat for only a short time, but that brief time may be supremely important. All things do not need to stay forever, and yet, at the same time I think the imprint does in some way stay forever. It is sort of a paradox. I no longer need to share with my boss how much my patients express their appreciation for me. It is sort of a communion. The grace I have and the love I feel in return cannot be more sacred. Through my own work, I have been able to recognize many of my patterns and more importantly view how even the negative patterns of my past can serve me in my current life. Because of my knowledge of their personal struggles, I can meet them at a place of grace and non-judgment which has had a wonderful impact on my ability to serve as a facilitator in the role of helping them get into a ‘new boat.’”
When we embrace the messages, lessons, and gifts from the painful and traumatic events of our lives, we no longer need their stories. We can finally let go of these stories, stop repeating them, and share the gifts gained with the world. As Eleanor was able to turn her pain into the gifts of grace, compassion, acceptance, and self-love, she was able to radiate that to her patients. Eleanor was also able to follow her own dreams. She started taking singing and guitar lessons. She went back to school, got a degree in fine arts, and followed her dream of being a writer.
Eleanor’s story illustrates the power of an image. The soul will often provide the exact image needed to capture the imagination’s path toward healing. When she saw herself in a “new boat, leaving the old boat with its old ways behind,” the energy of that image captured her heart and took up residence in her luminous energy field.
The heart is the place of “imaginal sight,” the place of seeing things as they really or essentially are. To see with the heart is to see images that arise in the imagination as “real” figures—not something we have made up, but as genuine, authentic beings. Thus, Eleanor’s boat was a real, authentic energy field that she was actually within and that energy field was within her. This is an internal energetic shift.
We tend to misunderstand the meanings of these figures that show up in our dreams, imaginings, and fantasies. We believe these figures are just our subjective experience when they are instead imaginally real. We believe they are externally real when they are essentially real as internal realities. In other words, we confuse imaginal with subjective and internal, and we mistake essential for external and objective.45 Shamanism is a path of the heart. To “follow the heart” means to follow “imaginal sight.” To follow “imaginal sight” means to follow the essential meaning of the image living in the soul.46
Jungian analyst James Hillman, in his discussion of the groundbreaking work of Henry Corbin—scholar, philosopher, theologian, and champion of the transformative power of the imagination and transcendent reality in the individual—states quite clearly that the heart’s characteristic action is not feeling but sight.47 In discussing Corbin, Hillman says that the thought of the heart is the thought of images.48 The heart is the seat of the imagination. Imagination is the authentic voice of the heart. Hillman goes on to say that the heart’s intention creates and makes real the figures of the imagination. The heart knows that the images we think we invent are actually presented to us as authentic creatures. Without the gift of the heart’s imaginal sight, we misunderstand the meaning of the images in our dreams, the objects of our imaginings and fantasies, or that which appears in a shamanic healing journey.
We think that we made it all up as figments of our imagination, 49 in part because we were not taught to listen to our hearts. We must learn to ask ourselves, of all the images that could show up when we are dreaming or imaging, why this image or that image? I believe that the images that show up are the ones that best describe the conditions of our soul. These images show what is vibrating there. They offer us an opportunity to interact with them and not only heal the wounds they might reveal, but also bring into existence that which the soul longs to experience: the wholeness that is our natural state. If we are to do the healing work that these images offer us, we must view them as real—for, essentially, they are. They describe what is fundamental and basic to the soul. They show us what is living there. This is the spirit that lives in matter. This is what the heart knows. This is what the shaman knows.
This imaginal shift of seeing herself in a new boat shifted Eleanor’s consciousness and her energy. When we change our energy, we change our personal reality. When we change our reality, we change the world.50 This new consciousness wasn’t anxious about not being enough and needing validation. She left that old consciousness in the old boat. At that moment, the image of the new boat—and its energetic frequency—locked in. She upgraded her luminous energy field. Now, it was just a matter of time before these changes started to show up in her life.
In his book, Mind Magic: The Neuroscience of Manifestation and How It Changes Everything, James Doty says that once something is embedded in the brain, six centers within the brain go to work to bring that new idea into reality.51 The shaman would say that once something becomes an energetic imprint in the luminous energy field, the information in that imprint informs the chakras, and these energy centers then organize the physical and emotional worlds to create that reality. The new boat became Eleanor’s reality. Since that boat didn’t carry the imprint of her alcohol use, she left that narrative behind and created a new reality of an alcohol-free life.
This is an excerpt from my book, The Power of Shamanism and Energy Medicine: Personal Stories of Healing and Transformation. To read more about the healing practices of shamanism and energy healing, check out my book at https://www.amazon.com/Power-Shamanism-Energy-Medicine-Transformation-ebook/dp/B0F9HNG6KB
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45 Hillman, Thought of the Heart, 6.
46 Ibid., 29-30
47 Ibid., 4.
48 Ibid.
49 Ibid., 6.
50 Dispenza, Joe, “Change Your Energy, Change Your Life,” https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=-EYiHaPKJWI retrieved 6-19-24.