The Body Speaks in Metaphor
Since the mind loves metaphors, it is easy for it to create a darkness or cloudiness in the body. The placement of the dark spots is an indication of when or where the issue takes place, and once you learn to read it, half the diagnostic work is done for you.
Head — negative thoughts, often from childhood, mental or emotional abuse. Throat — they don't speak up, or are afraid to share their true thoughts. Heart — a broken heart, grief they are still hurting from. Abdomen / womb — an unborn child (aborted or miscarried), a childless person, or negative energy from being raped. Feet — often turns into chains, common in clients who say they feel stuck; usually stems from a past lifetime when they were trapped, chained, or imprisoned.
Where the Darkness Comes From
Possible reasons for the darkness — negative energy, fear or pain left over from a hurtful or tragic event: from this life or childhood, rape or molestation, physical abuse, mental and emotional abuse, limiting beliefs, sadness, stuck energy, "not good enough," fears, the womb, a past life, unexplainable pain, a soul or entity, a spell or curse, an unborn child.
Trauma From This Lifetime
Negative energy trauma in this life. Often, people have traumatic experiences that create negative energy which they hold onto — an accident, emotional or verbal abuse, being fired; too many events to list. Each one needs to be handled with a lot of compassion.
Rewriting the Event
The client is best served when they can see the event take place once again, and can then interrupt the event by changing the outcome (the mind doesn't know the difference) or telling off the other person. This technique allows the client to have their voice heard. Whether it is to a parent or a boss, the feeling of being free to confront the person and really say what is on their mind is a beautiful thing.
Once they have finished saying their piece, you may want the other person to explain themselves, or have them say they are sorry. Then it is important to cut the cords — to the person and also to the situation. Cutting the cords actually cuts the potency of the negative emotion. Now when the client thinks of the situation, they don't have the negative emotional surge they used to have.
From My Practice — The Client Who Picked Her Lip
A client came to me wanting to stop picking her lip. Her lips were always cracked and bleeding and the embarrassment was hard for her to bear, and she had been doing it for as long as she could remember. Once she was relaxed, I asked her to imagine her body becoming clear like glass, then to scan it and tell me anywhere that looked dark or cloudy. She saw darkness around her lips. On the count of three it rose above her, and when I asked what it looked like she described a deep red, gooey blob that disgusted her. I asked what it represented and it answered plainly: pain and fear.
Before I could ask where it came from, she was already three years old in a war zone, hearing blasts, murmuring "bad people," sitting on her mother's lap while her mother tried to comfort her. That was the moment she began picking her lip — she had bound the sensation to being comforted. She felt the fear as deeply as she could, and when it naturally subsided her whole body relaxed. We cut the cords to the memory, and then we built a new one: her mother rocking her gently, safe, hands nowhere near her mouth. We ran it several times before I brought her back. The mind does not care whether an image is old or new — it just files it, and the new file becomes the go-to file.
From My Practice — One Body, Six Darknesses
One clean-out will often produce a whole sequence, and I want you to see how ordinary that is. This client saw darkness in her abdomen that rose as the face of a child — a pregnancy that never came to term. I stayed with her language, she said what she needed to say, and a light came down and two large hands gently took the baby home. A black oval came out of her hip that she understood as leftover energy from a childhood illness; we cut the cord and let it go.
Then her chest: her mother's face, with the word "burden" attached. Her mother was caring for her father, and my client was carrying that weight in her chest and lungs. After we cut the cords she watched the heaviness rise into the light and she took her first full breath. Then her neck, where her range of motion was genuinely limited. The darkness there said "restrictions" — partly a longing to be with her angels again, partly the restrictions she felt inside her marriage. As she came to trust and let go, that cord cut. What remained in her neck opened into a past life where a jester on horseback mocked her as a waste of a life. She cut that cord with a sword and he ran. Then she moved her head freely, back and forth, and was amazed. Last, her ex-husband was lodged in her throat, restricting her voice. He asked for forgiveness, she gave it, the cords came off, and her voice came back.
Do not stop at the first darkness. Go back to the cloud above the lounge chair and ask if there is anything else, and keep asking until the answer is no.
Practice
Build your placement map. 1. Write the five placements down the page: head, throat, heart, womb, feet. 2. Next to each, write one client scenario you can genuinely imagine landing there. 3. Next to that, write the first open question you would ask when a client names that spot. 4. Keep the page by your chair. Patterns will start announcing themselves the moment a client points to a location.