The Art of Energy Healing Volume Six Group Dynamics

By Susan Diane Matz

Volume 6, Group Dynamics, provides another level of self-awareness for understanding both yourself and other people in a group dynamic. Change occurs one person at a time, but on some level every individual is part o f a group. So self-understanding comes from looking at both yourself as an individual, and yourself in a group dynamic.

At some time in their lives most adults will experience themselves through teaching. It could be teaching their own children, an informal explanation to a group of adults, or a more formal setting, but most adults do interact in a group at a teaching level sometime within their life.

Volume 6 explains some of the major energetic dynamics that goes on within groups and with the teaching process itself. To understand yourself is not just to understand yourself alone; it also requires that you understand how you interact with other people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Diane Matz
• Release date: Feb 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311107619

Susan Diane Matz

An innovative author and teacher, Susan Diane Matz helps people look at themselves, the world and the process of life from a different angle. She ran a school for change and is a captivating speaker. She has written over twenty books.

Book preview

Preface

Energetic Dynamics apply to everything, including group dynamics. For example, as each person uses the Defense System, sliding in and out of the five defense Characterologies, so does a group consciousness. Understanding Self is where everyone begins, but when you actively and consciously choose to work with a group of people, understanding the dynamics of that group consciousness now becomes an added personal responsibility, therefore an added level of personal evolvement is required.

Teaching may be considered a job, but it is an important job when it comes to self-discovery, personal development and self-awareness. Teaching is another level in both witnessing, and working with your Self. It is a direct mirror for your ability to become more evolved in your conscious awareness, your Higher Self. Most people use the skill of teaching simply as a job, but the ability to Be a teacher is not just a job. It involves your willingness to mature beyond just your individuated Self, your willingness to See yourself at a deeper level, and your ability to evolve your Intuitive Self.

Group dynamics is a fascinating way to understand human evolution better, and if you work with a group, it is a fabulous way to develop, or mature, your Self. This book is written to give some insight into group dynamics and the process of teaching. No matter what format the teaching takes, a corporate environment, a grade school, collegiate environment, private sessions, independent classes, workshops or even a healing school, the process of teaching and learning goes through similar energetic dynamics. This book goes over some basic explanations that occur within these dynamics.

When a person stands up in front of group and claims that they have something to teach, this is a very serious step in personal development. Unfortunately many who take this step are not quite evolved into this depth of personal evolution. Teaching is not simply talking at people, passing on information, quoting, reading something out loud to a group, routine training, or sharing information. Teaching is also not about getting in front of a group and talking about yourself, or telling some story. None of these describe what happens in True teaching, but all of them are common distortions of the Teaching Process.

Here’s to all that do teach. Here’s to all that hold themselves back, but are more than capable of going onto the next level of evolvement in their lives, teaching. And here’s to all seeking to understand the energetic dynamics behind the process of teaching and learning at a deeper level. Here’s to the courage of going onward.

Love,

Susan D. Matz

Aspects of Teaching

There is a big difference between educating and getting information across. A really big difference actually, and it is through the process of exploring and understanding this difference that a person learns how to teach.

Teaching is the art of educating. Domination is the act of getting information across. The first one is in light, the second in Shadow. A lot of what is labeled as teaching is really the act of dominating a group of people and shoving information at them. This is especially seen when a person goes through a lot of training where they are programmed in teaching techniques used for getting information across. Techniques are a dangerous toy. They can be used healthily as a training tool, but just as unhealthily when a person thinks that the techniques themselves are the education. Techniques are not educating tools, they are training tools used to help someone go through the physical aspect of learning, like demonstrating how to change the oil in a car. The act of changing the oil is the technique, but it does not educate someone on how a car is run.

Just because someone can perform a technique does not mean that they understand what they are doing. A small child can be trained to use a scalpel to make an incision in a person; this doesn’t mean they understand anatomy and physiology, let alone the seriousness of what they are doing when cutting into another person. An eleven-year-old (who is tall enough) could be trained how to drive a car. This does not mean that they are emotionally old enough to be a driver. They are not capable of understanding the rules-of-the-road or the seriousness of driving. Skill and learning are not directly related. This is how teachers are made. They are trained in techniques, then go off and technique train other people and call it teaching. This is not teaching; it is mimicking. There is some skill being learned but no real expanded awareness, in other words, no understanding. The average three-year-old can mimic; it doesn’t mean they understand what they are doing.

Information is just random bits of knowledge being thrown around, knowledge that may be in Shadow and not Truth. Throwing information around is not teaching. Teaching is the process of taking information and bringing it together to form an understanding of whatever topic is being taught. This is the biggest difference between educating and dominating. Education is all about understanding something, dominating is all about pre-programmed, pre-packaged, conclusion-based information being thrown at a group (and at its worst, being shoved down their throats). Real understanding comes from concepts being introduced to people in a neutral format, using creative ways to bring those concepts across to a group. In real teaching there is space given for the concepts to be taken to deeper levels of personal understanding. There is no factoid-driven, conclusive, pre-packaged knowledge being shoved at people. Teaching creates space for learning, and learning has no conclusions, only more questions.

Having knowledge and understanding something is not the same thing. Knowledge is simply bits of information; understanding is concept put into form. Information is something that is easily distorted. This is a common tool in everyone’s Shadow Self: distorting Truth through the distortion of how information is presented or distorting the information itself. Shadow-based knowledge is all about using logic to create concrete, limited beliefs from each piece of information it takes in. Remember that beliefs are limited and Truth is unlimited, so anytime you are limiting something, you are in your Shadow Self. To be in Truth is to understand that nothing you could ever label as knowledge is limited, that every piece of information you will ever receive is just a fragment of a much larger understanding. This is why real teaching is about information coming across in the form of concepts, not about spitting out facts. Every piece of information brought forth from center is an introduction to a larger understanding. Every fact is really just part of a larger concept when taken out of Shadow and put back into center. Take the old math example of 2+2=4, but what if just one of those 2s was a carton of eggs? So does 2+12 eggs really equal 4? Every answer just leads to another question. There really are no answers, just levels of understanding larger and larger concepts.

In the basics of teaching, like teaching children their ABC’s, a teacher is introducing a concept (in this case language) through the process of teaching a specific foundation: letters. Usually the first level in the teaching process requires a base foundation to be taught that is filled with specifics, but these specifics are just the labels that will be used to talk about a larger concept down the road. Learning the letters in the alphabet introduces a way to define the literary substance that makes up words. Words make up languages, which are different all over the world and can be interpreted in many different ways. Learning your ABCs is a basic foundation, but in no way is it learning a limited set of facts. The alphabet is simply a building block to a much larger concept (language) that has many different meanings, slants, interpretations and, most importantly, possibilities for unlimited new things to be learned. The alphabet is not a fact, but rather a foundation. And a bunch of facts is not a foundation in anything, but many people are trained to believe this. A foundation consists of information that has been broken down to basic and understandable building blocks that hold the possibility for many more levels of understanding to be learned. Facts are limited, distorted and disconnected pieces of information.

All knowledge is limited because it is just part of a bigger understanding; therefore no piece of information is ever an answer or a fact. Facts are the end result of the Shadow Self stuffing a piece of knowledge into the Belief System, and then creating a False Image based on that limited, false piece of information. (Remember that, even if the initial information is in Truth, when it becomes part of the Belief System, it becomes distorted, limited and no longer part of Truth.) A fact is a very limited piece of information. It’s like saying water is wet, period, end of story. Water may be wet but it is so much more. Wet doesn’t even begin to describe or explain what water really is, and what it is capable of.

Facts are not real, just distorted pieces of information. When a person gathers lots of facts together, it makes them feel very powerful, but this sense of power is all from Shadow. True understanding is what’s found when a person is in their center. And one of the things that understanding helps people learn is that there is always more to understand! There are always more layers, more levels, and more depth. Any glimpse of understanding a person gets about something just brings them into a bigger place of questions and potential learning. It is endless. When a person is in their Shadow, especially their False Image, this concept is horrifying because the False Image is built on limited facts that make it feel important, powerful and, above all, right. Take away the belief that there are limited facts in the world, you take away the False Image. The False Image is just that, false, so it has nothing real to stand on. It lives on a foundation of arrogance and judgment built on limited information that it considers the irrefutable and right information. The stronger a person’s False Image, the less they actually know. Ignorance is a measuring tool for arrogance.

A healthy and truly effective teacher is one who leaves their False Image at the door. No dominating a group, no shoving conclusive and rigid information at a group. No controlling a group, trying to get them to get it, and get it exactly how the teacher wants. A teacher’s job is to introduce concepts, bring those concepts across in a non-judgmental, non-forceful environment. It is to respect every student for where they are at, and to recognize their potential without ever pushing them. A teacher supports; they never judge, limit or control their students.

Teaching is a very difficult job. It requires selflessness, maturity and a willingness to allow each student to go at their own pace. A teacher has to be okay with being wrong; they have to allow each student space to surpass them. Teaching is not about getting information across; it is about introducing new concepts and giving space for those concepts to grow and become whatever each student’s Higher Self is guiding them towards in any given moment.

Teaching is about helping people to understand something. Teaching is not a game called Who Has the Most Information. That’s a game only a person’s Shadow Self plays. There is no control in teaching. There is only guidance, space for understanding and concepts. Factoids need not apply for the job of Teaching Assistant! Understanding is the key; it’s just that when a person is in their False Image, all understanding is really limited facts. The ability to understand something is just one piece in a large puzzle, and understanding itself guides a person into the whole puzzle little by little. A fact is a puzzle piece that has fallen to the floor, becoming disconnected and lost from the bigger picture. Teaching is not a job where one person is trying to get a group to get something; teaching is a sacred space where one person brings expanded concepts to a group and helps them connect to those concepts. What a person does with the concepts once they connect to them is their responsibility.

The Real Learning Curve

To learn something, understand something, and Know something is not the same thing. They are three completely different steps that are all involved in the same process: change. Real change only comes after all three steps are complete. Fake change happens quickly, without having to evaluate or face anything deep about yourself. You don’t have to go through the process of learning anything new in order for false, Shadow-based change to happen. You do have to expand your awareness by experiencing, learning, understanding, and eventually evolving to a new level of Knowing in order for real change to occur.

Learning is actually a whole process that starts by consciously acknowledging that you don’t know something. This is an important point, as the False Image level of the Shadow Self will quickly give lip-service to the fact that it doesn’t know something, without really meaning it. Just because someone says they’re wrong or acknowledges that they don’t know something, doesn’t mean that they mean it. The False Image just says it’s ignorant in order to move on; underneath its false words it believes itself to be perfect. So the first step really is consciously, honestly admitting ignorance.

The second step is having the desire to learn something new. Just because you find an area you are ignorant in, doesn’t necessarily mean that you want to learn about it. For example, I don’t really care how the engine of a car works. I fully acknowledge my ignorance, but I also fully acknowledge that this is not an area I have a desire to learn about. People often fake a desire to learn something for underlying motives, like children trying to please their parents, a partner feeling insecure in their relationship and basically sucking up or humoring the other person, someone at work fearing that they will lose their job if they don’t volunteer to start up something new or partake in something they don’t care about, and many social situations where people feel they have to show an interest in something they really have no interest in. So the second step is having a legitimate desire to learn.

Having a legitimate desire to learn also involves establishing whether those desires are coming from your Core Essence, or from Shadow. Many people feel passion towards something for all the wrong reasons. Pick any showbiz or stage parent. They have a passion to push their child into something like: pageants/sports/ singing/dancing/music/cheerleading, etc. in order to fulfill their Idealized Self-Image. It’s the classic case of living out their fantasies of fame through their children. Many of the people I’ve met who tell me that they want to be a healer want it for all the wrong reasons. Being a healer is a very selfless, hard, committed and arduous job. Like many occupations in the world, it’s much harder than it looks on the outside. But the Magician aspect of a person’s Shadow tends to love the idea of being a healer so that it can feel like a god by believing it has the power to heal another person. (Just a little reminder, God and the client’s soul are doing the healing; the healer’s personality is not involved.) There is no external glory in being a healer, but many people do not understand this and seek external worship from followers through this occupation. And when they go to a healing school (if they even go), they will swear that the desire to be a healer comes from within and is the real thing. But it’s not. How many teenage girls really like video games, or is it that they just like a teenage boy who does?

Once the pureness of the desire to learn is established, the learning itself