What do you mean by the "energetics of Voice Dialogue"
And the "Energetics of relationship"?

When we think about relationship we think about it on a number of different levels. We think about the physical aspects, the emotional aspects, the mental aspects and the spiritual aspect. There is however another dimension to relationship and that is the energetic reality. We meet someone and there is a feeling we may get about the person – possibly a sense of harmony or a certain kind of vibe that puts us off. We may get all kinds of cues from our body and mind and emotional life and spiritual side but there may also be the experience of the actual energy itself. For example, if you are a woman and you meet a very intellectual man and you feel drawn to him and his mind but you are also tuned in energetically and you sense that he is not in connection at this level. There is no exchange of energy between you. He is very impersonal and has the power that goes with it but you miss any feeling of essential energetic connection.

If you are with a very young child you may be mesmerized for hours by the bundle of pure energy that lies in front of you. They look into your eyes when they start to focus and there you are hypnotized by the energetic connection.

Someone walks into a room and you can feel the presence of the person. He or she is expanded. There is a feeling that the body extends out much further than the actual physical body. Another person feels totally contracted. You can feel their shyness or fear or sense of awkwardness and the resulting energetic contraction is palpable. We are constantly engaged in these energetic exchanges in life.

When you study the selves for any length of time you begin to sense that the different selves are really very different kinds of energetic configurations. When one is facilitating the Inner Child one is generally struck by the magnitude of the energy field that is present. It is very much like being with a real child that we have described above.

A woman with a strong Aphrodite energy that is personal ignites in other people their own sensual nature in remarkable ways. Another woman may have this same sensual energy available and she may have learned to channel it in an impersonal way and the effect is very different with people that she meets, still very sensual but with a clear sense of boundaries.

So there gradually began to develop in us an awareness and experience of the energetics of Voice Dialogue. This work gradually led us to the realization that it was possible to work directly on an energetic level with individuals in addition to the ways we had been trained in our professional work.

Gradually this led to the application of this work to relationship work in general so that it has become a core part of relationship work to train people in energetic awareness so that they can exercise more choice in their connection to each other.

Partners in relationship are always carrying opposite energies from each other to some degree. If a man is intellectual and a woman is personal there is a huge difference between them. In the beginning this can create a strong attraction but eventually there will be problems. Using energetic principles we can help the man to separate from the mind so that he is able to embrace the personal and thus become more energetically related to this part of his nature. The Aware Ego can then embrace both of these states of consciousness.

The woman’s job would be the opposite. We would help her to separate from her personal energy and then have available the impersonal side that her husband has always carried. Now when they deal with each other there is a very different quality in their connection. Both are carrying the ability to use the two energy states and so they no longer force their partner more and more deeply into his or her disowned self.

Energetic awareness is certainly one of the richest areas of research that has come out of our work together and it most certainly has become one of the cornerstones in our life together.

There is an excellent chapter (The Magic of Linkage: Energetic Connection as a Healing Force) - complete with discussion and exercises - on the energetics of relationship in Partnering. There are also sections in The Aware Ego and the Partnering: the Art of Conscious Relationship CDs and in the Voice Dialogue Series devoted to this extremely important topic.