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by Julie Motz
1998 ISBN #0-553-10714-3 Julie Motz is an energy healer, working in patients homes, in her office as well as in the operating room with surgeons as they operate on their patients. What she proposes is that trauma and unresolved emotions contribute to a patients suffering and healing ability, and that when patients are able to release their anger and fear they began to heal both body and soul. Her journey starts with a patient called George - a veteran in need of a heart transplant. She is in the operating room with him as the surgery is being done - not as an observer, but as a healer, channeling energy to the patients body. During the operation, she starts to see images of anger coming from George. She whispers to him that it is OK - that he needs that anger to make it through this surgery. Once she does this - the anger subsides. (note: This can be an area to watch in healing - that the healer *takes on* the pain/emotions of the one being healed.) Several days after the surgery, Julie goes in to see George, and gives him accupressure treatments on his feet to help him start urinating properly. This is one of the major points that I like about this book - the author shares her concerns for her abilities and the acceptance of those abilities, and she uses whatever techniques she feels will be of most benefit to the patient. Julie explains in this book how her work as a healer began as a search for ways to become comfortable with, or *inhabit* (her word) her own body. (That is the premis of this whole column - to empower my readers to become comfortable with themselves and their lives.) A large part of her journey was coming to terms with a past abusive relationship and a dysfunctional family life as she was growing up. She describes how this affected her emotionaly (depression) and physically (bulemia). In her description of her first session with Reiki (energy healing) she describes how she recovered a memory, a painful memory, from childhood and was able to release it. The *telling* aspect of this is that our bodies hold memories of what has happened to us in the past, and that we need to acknowledge and let go of these memories to function to a fuller capacity in life. To be more *at home* in our bodies. In connection with the above, Julie has included in her book a two page chart of the bodies major organs, it's function and the emotions connected with it. Perhaps more than one needs to know (unless, like me, you are a Reiki healer :) ), but it does a wonderful job of connecting mind/body. She does the same thing for the chakra system - giving the color, location, physical and emotional function of each of the chakra's. (The chakra system is the path in which energy flows through our bodies.) The gist of this book is the connections between emotions, our chosing to hide from or bury our emotions, and the dis-ease processes that we experience. Once we understand this, as individuals, we can heal ourselves and others. The problem that I have with this book is that Julie makes the attempt to view her work through *scientific* criteria, seeming to come form a place of fear as far as accpetance by society for her gifts goes. The word Reiki is mentioned only a few times - even though that seems to be where her study originated. She works a great deal with accupressure and it's associated meridians, and exhibits clear tendencies for being an empath - which is something she never mentions. What we can gain from "Hands of Life" is the knowledge that our bodies and minds are connected. That our bodies retain energy *memories* of past experiences that we are afraid to /not wanting to let go of, and that we can access and release those memories. I do hope that you give this book a try. It certainly is a beginning - perhaps a forerunner of the alternative medicine protocols now in some hospitals, and certainly a forerunner of work that energy healers are doing with aids patients and those with other terminal illnesses.
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