client who learned this firsthand wrote the following: “The relationship with my therapist was very tricky. He was my rescuer and I tried to be his perfect, over-achieving patient. He was thrilled with my progress, but after many years, we reached a plateau. According to him, I needed to take one more step, relive my childhood traumas in his presence, and rewrite the script together. It sounded good, but something didn’t feel right; I felt he was in love with me and couldn’t let me go. But from his point of view, it was my unconscious stopping me from complete healing. From my view, I was way too dependent on him and asked Deena for help. She said we were both merged. I was able to ‘zip up’ and she talked to him telepathically (on a level that is not conscious). He really was not letting go. I had an excruciating in-person conversation with him, but I kept my resolve and it made me stronger. Then I was able to move on and end the relationship.”
One place to suspect merging is in a relationship where one frequently has arguments. Often, when the merging dynamic has ended, and each person stays centered in his or her own field, the relationship becomes better. It is not a panacea for all relationships, but in order for a relationship to be healthy, both people must stay in their own separate energy field.
After learning to not merge with her husband, one client wrote: “It was my second marriage and I felt desperate that if this relationship failed, I’d be a total failure. I felt so worthless and ashamed when we didn’t get along. I felt so responsible to set an example of a good marriage for all our children. It couldn’t fail and I’d force it to work. I felt at the edge of an empty canyon. I kept trying to talk things through even when getting nowhere. I felt rootless. In this last year, since I’ve been mostly ‘zipped up,’ I’m so much more at peace. The most difficult part was accepting that my husband might not want to change, ever. That was heartbreaking, but Deena helped me realize I was not alone, and the essential thing was my own internal peace. ‘Zipping up’ is how I get there.”
It is possible for more than two people to merge together. I sometimes see that clients who have merging issues have grown up in a family where the various energy fields are merged together in one unhealthy clump. This is what they know, and so they themselves merge or marry “mergers.”
When I asked a former “merger” how she felt being merged, she responded: “Unsteady physically, obsessive thinking about what was going on with the other, panicky, playing out scenarios of ‘what if,’ often angry, but feeling trapped and powerless. Sometimes I felt ‘in love,’ sometimes I felt like a small child who couldn’t speak.”
When two or more people are merged, it makes it less likely that any individual is going to do his or her own personal emotional homework. That doesn’t guarantee that if you unmerge from an overweight spouse he or she will suddenly cease to eat lunch at Pizza Hut. But it does increase the likelihood that a person will consider emotional change. While merged, no one can really tell who is who.
A Bedtime Story
I had worked with Sheila previously concerning matters of self-love and self-esteem. She had learned grounding and had begun opening her heart to herself. This was an important foundation for what was needed in the healing she then requested for her nine-year-old son, Nathan.
The first seven years of Nathan’s life were spent in a one-room cabin, and he was accustomed to sleeping in the same room as his parents. Sheila wrote that shortly before they moved to a larger home, it appeared to her that Nathan began to fear the dark and to fear his mother going to sleep before he did. She felt that sleep-aways from home were traumatic for him. After the move to a larger place, Nathan had his own room but continued to sleep in a bed beside his mother. It seemed to her that he continued to panic if he were not the first one to fall asleep, or at least fall asleep before his mother.
As I looked at the energy fields of Sheila and Nathan, I saw that Sheila’s energy was merged in with Nathan’s and that it was very unhealthy for both parties. I could see it was important that Sheila separate her field from her son’s, and I gave her the “Zip Up” exercise to do. Very quickly, she was able to perform it successfully and separate her field from Nathan’s during the day. I knew, however, that there was no way she could keep that up at night with Nathan sleeping in a bed right next to hers. And I could see that Sheila’s husband was not thrilled about the sleeping arrangements either. (This does not mean that married couples who have overlapping problems need to sleep separately in order to unmerge. This particular situation with mother and son required a physical separation.)
To me it looked critical that Sheila move Nathan into his own room at night, and that she do it in a very matter-of-fact way. I believed that with the separation of energy fields, he would no longer panic.
At first Sheila was reluctant and she simply moved Nathan’s bed further away in the same room. I saw this didn’t change the energy dynamic and that she still overlapped fields with him at night. I became adamant that she not waste another minute in getting him in his own room. Again, I believed that if she felt it were no big deal, moving Nathan to separate sleeping quarters should be fine.
To Sheila’s astonishment and relief, the whole move of Nathan to his own bedroom for sleeping took place without trauma at all. Once she understood the energy dynamic and took steps to remedy the situation, she was able to change the physical logistics without much ado. She sent me an e-mail shortly after saying:
“Nathan sure has responded positively to this healing. Not only is he feeling really good in his own room—it’s like a revelation . . . Last night he woke up about 2:00 a.m. and called out for me, stating that he was scared. I walked over to his bed, gave him a kiss, and told him I was going back to bed and would be in my room if he needed me . . . and he went right back to sleep! And this is the only incident of any fear. He hasn’t mentioned feeling afraid—which was practically a nightly ritual before—when he prepared for sleep.”
She wrote again later that Nathan now looked forward to bedtime in his own room and she was amazed at how effortless the change had been once she unmerged with his energy field. Previously she found Nathan completely resistant to sleeping in his own room.
The follow-up for a healing like this involves being sure that the self-esteem of the person who has learned not to merge is sufficiently in place. Sometimes when one makes a change like this, there is a tendency to feel guilty about not having done what was needed earlier. There might be worry about having caused harm once someone realizes how different the energy dynamic between two people can be when energy fields are separate. The understanding needs to be that we do the best we know to do in the moment, and when we know better, we do better.
The “Zip-Up” Exercise
This is a very simple exercise, and so far it has been like magic for a number of clients who needed to separate their energy fields from others. The exercise is the same regardless of whether the person doing it has been actively merging into others or someone has been merging into him or her. It only takes one party to end the dynamic. Of course, if both parties are open and understanding of what needs to happen, it’s terrific for everyone involved to perform the “Zip-Up.” But if you are being merged into by someone else in a situation where you can’t say anything, you will not be a victim. You can prevent the merge from your end alone.
Visualize you and the other person facing in opposite directions (away from each other). This visualization is done within your own mind. There is no “out there.” Each of you has on a body suit that zips up above your heads. Zip up the suits and walk away in opposite directions. Repeat as needed. Most people feel the difference and the relief is so evident that they learn quickly to remain in their own field.
(Copyright © July, 2006 by Deena Zalkind Spear, P.O. Box 6562, Ithaca, NY, 14851. For
