Hands and Heads: Made for Each Other

Written By Ruth Ann Smalley
Vibrant Energies

      I had to laugh the first times my kids used the expression “facepalm” to indicate their reaction to an embarrassing or difficult situation. Because, as an Energy Medicine practitioner, I knew that this natural gesture was starting to get the recognition it deserves. But most people still don’t know the whole story, so I’d like to tell it. Or, my version of it.
     The hand to the face, or more specifically, the forehead, is actually a powerful healing technique. As Donna Eden, renowned healer and founder of Eden Energy Medicine explains, we instinctively move our hands to our forehead to help us cope with stress, shock, surprise, frustration, chagrin, and other strong emotions that tend to send us into fight, flight, or freeze. ​The subtle electromagnetism of our hands helps bring energy, blood, and oxygen back to our forebrain after stress has sent everything flying out to our extremities. I’d venture to guess that a facepalm like the one shown is also helping to shield our Third Eye chakra from unwanted intrusions, while we collect our emotions. However, we normally don’t really keep our hands in place quite long enough for the full magic to occur. At least 3 minutes of gentle holding is really what we need. And what would be better yet--if some nice person in our lives could do the holding for us!

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​       Learning Energy Medicine has made me so much more aware of the power we all have in our hands. Humans as a species have known this forever, as you can tell from the historic use of the Hamsa symbol for protection and blessing in many cultures.
        Going even further back, the ancient, evocative handprints in Argentina’s Cave of Hand make us feel touched through time, just seeing those individual impressions from people who walked the earth tens of thousands of years ago 

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​     Consider all the personal impressions you may have stored away about hands. Imagine the feel of a loving hand on your brow. The sensation of slipping your tiny hand into that of a beloved grown up when you were a child. The first time you held hands with someone you had a crush on. 
​     If we think about how much our hands are our extensions of our brains, allowing us to reach out into the world to make connections--to give, to act, to shape, and create from our ideas--it makes perfect sense that hands and heads have a very special relationship. Hands are also connected to the field of the heart chakra, so they carry that heart connection, as well. (photo: marianocecowski).

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     Headache, light-headed, dull-headed, brain-fog: before I studied energy, these were pretty much the only descriptive terms I would have come up with for sensations the head might be prone to. What a surprise, then, once I began putting my hands on them, that the energy of people’s heads could conjure up words such as ping-ponging, pinballing, and surging, and images such as tides coming in; illuminated circuitry connecting; noisy gourd rattles gently transforming into calm human heads; or flashing, erratic lights, gradually coordinating into a softly glowing movie marquee. And best of all, deep, pure springs of water that have been buried and are now liberated, flowing to the surface, bringing your inner wisdom and insight into consciousness.
       Hard to fathom if you haven’t experienced it, but yes, but this is how people’s heads can feel when I am holding them. As the energy gets organized, the shifts are amazingly palpable. Besides breathing, it is the simplest technique I know for creating a beneficial state change, for yourself, or for another. So, next time you find yourself instinctively facepalming, take note! Take a deep breath. Move your other hand to the back of your head, and stay put for at least 3 minutes. As you draw on the ancient intelligence of your ancestors, your attention and intention will make this a helpful, healing moment!

Ruth Ann Smalley, PhD, Certified Eden Energy Medicine and Biofield Tuning Practitioner. Vibrant-energies.com

​​Photo by Liv Bruce on Unsplash