ALSO BY DONNA EDEN AND DAVID FEINSTEIN:
Energy Medicine
Energy Medicine for Women
Ethics Handbook for Energy Healing Practitioners
The Promise of Energy Psychology (with Gary Craig)
BY DONNA EDEN:
The Little Book of Energy Medicine (with Dondi Dahlin)
BY DAVID FEINSTEIN:
Energy Psychology Interactive
Rituals for Living and Dying (with Peg Elliott Mayo)
Personal Mythology (with Stanley Krippner)
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Copyright 2014 by Donna Eden and David Feinstein
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Blessing: For Love in a Time of Conflict from To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings by John ODonohue, copyright 2008 by John ODonohue. Used by permission of Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Any third-party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited. Interested parties must apply directly to Random House LLC for permission.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Eden, Donna.
The energies of love : using energy medicine to keep your relationship thriving / Donna Eden, David Feinstein; foreword by Jean Houston; illustrations by Annamaria Paciulli Volpicella
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-698-17621-8
1. Energy medicine. 2. Couples. 3. Interpersonal relations. 4. Love. I. Feinstein, David. II. Title.
RZ999.E3267 2014 2014021654
615.8'9dc23
Neither the publisher nor the author is engaged in rendering professional advice or services to the individual reader. The ideas, procedures, and suggestions contained in this book are not intended as a substitute for psychotherapy, couple counseling, or consulting with your physician. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss or damage allegedly arising from any information or suggestion in this book.
Version_1
For our grandson, Tiernan Ray Devenyns.
May the energies of love be the hallmark of his generation.
One day after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides, and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And then, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.
PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN
Contents
Acknowledgments
W hile teaching our Energies of Love classes in recent years, Donna has become fond of saying, Thank God I didnt leave David when I should have! In thinking about our gratitudes and acknowledgments for this book, Davids first and foremost appreciation is that Donna didnt leave him when she should have and Donnas is that David came around so it was worth the wait. Given the uncertainties and struggles we have gone through, we are as amazed as we are gratified by how many people who have watched us teach or work together in recent years have told us that our relationship is an inspiration that gives them hope. Their comments have helped push us over the line into being bold enough to write this book.
The Energies of Love, which in a true sense has been in gestation for the entire thirty-seven years of our relationship, is indebted to so many people that we arent even going to risk naming names. Not only would that fill many pages, we would still inevitably leave out too many who have lent a guiding hand along the way. Instead, we will list categories. Guilty parties will know where they fit. First are our parents and families of origin, who inaugurated us into all that was to follow. Next, our daughters and extended family provide the foundation on which we stand. Then our closest friends, from childhood to present day. Our lovers and intimates from the past provided us with the most personal and profound instruction about what works... and what doesnt. Our teachers, our many magnificent teachers, formal and informal, helped shape who we are. And our therapistswe know we were tough cookies, and we thank you for giving your all to meet the challenges. Our clients and students have taught us so much by allowing us to participate in their journeys.
The actual writing, putting words on paper, was facilitated in so many ways by the support of our magnificent staff at Innersource and the hundreds of energy medicine and energy psychology practitioners who orbit around them. Our editor at Tarcher/Penguin as well as the publishers founder, its current chief, and its staff have been gifts that few authors today can even hope for. Finally, we have sought counsel for specific sections of the book from friends and colleagues, and they have contributed generously and masterfully.
We are deeply grateful to every one of you.
Foreword
W hen you first meet them, they seem an unlikely couple. Donna is exuberant, spontaneous, intuitive. David is quietly reflective, studious, and always looking for deeper meanings. She is champagne; he is still water. She is of a tropical nature; he is most definitely northern. And yet, with all their contrasts, they have, through dint of unstinting effort and rich affection, cultivated a loving, creative, and exemplary marriage. He puts her feelings and intuition into words. She sees and orchestrates energies that enable him to enter a different universe of understanding. Together, they have done the hard work of relationship, and we are their beneficiaries.
Which is to say that TheEnergies of Love heralds a revolution in our understanding of relationships. I believe it to be one of the most important books of our time, the Open Sesame to new ways of being. Drawing upon their many years of work in energy medicine and energy psychology, the authors have given us a deeply original and eminently practical art and science for crossing the great divide of otherness. Theirs is the state-of-the-art understanding and utilization of the emerging science of consciously orchestrating the energies of brain and heart, body, mind, and spirit, a technology of human transformation and social evolution. They offer tools and techniques, stories, and examples that enhance ways of lifting relationships to higher bands of energy and harmony. They explore the reality of how different brains come with different energies and how to understand the structures, stages, and styles of love and romance. And their take on the traditional battle of the sexes is both unique and startling. They have found the way to end the ancient war! As they say: