Long-time Hills Resident's Life Work is Energy

Elaine Grohman cannot heal you. But the long-time Farmington Hills resident says she can help you heal yourself.

The author of The Angels and Me, a collection of her experiences with divine communication, Grohman is working on a second book that focuses on her work with energy medicine. On her website, she explains the practice as re-establishing a healthy flow in the body's natural energy, so the body can maintain itself.

Since starting her journey 15 years ago, Grohman has lectured at Madonna University and worked with both the University of Michigan and Wayne State University medical schools to promote the concepts of energy healing.

While the new book will have some "how to" elements, Grohman said, it is not just a book that tells people what to do.

"I don't want people to think of me as another person to abdicate their authority to," she said. "I teach people how to recognize the sensations in their bodies. Our bodies are always trying to tell us something."

Grohman started listening to those messages years ago, just before the death of her aunt, in a hospice setting.

"I was sitting with her, holding my aunt's hand and thanking her, hoping she could hear me," Grohman recalled. At one point, she felt a "palpable movement in the room that was shocking, but at the same time, very peaceful." Two days later, her aunt passed away.

About two weeks after the experience, she learned, "I was privileged to feel her spirit leave her body." As she became more involved with hospice, she met a massage therapist who did energy work, and that set her on the path she walks today.

Physically, Grohman has not moved far from a childhood spent growing up in what was then Farmington Township. She attended school and recalls riding her bike into downtown Farmington, going to movies at the – where she held her first book signing for The Angels and Me – and visiting Himmelspach's Dairy.

"They made the best milkshakes in the world," she said.

Her family moved from Detroit when Grohman was a year and a half old, so she has no memory of living in the city. But she does remember playing in forts on the Spicer farm, which is now .

"Whenever I felt stressed as a child, I would go out in nature," she said.

And there was plenty of stress. The seventh of nine children, Grohman was 12 years old when she lost her 15-year-old brother, Brian, to muscular dystrophy. The following year, her mother, Elaine, died unexpectedly. Both were beloved not only by their families, but also in the community.

Her brother's funeral was so large, that Farmington Township police for the first time offered a police escort, Grohman said. "The second time was my mother," she added.

The day of her brother's funeral, Sen. Robert Kennedy was assassinated. "Everywhere I turned, people were in shock," she said. "Nature became even more of a refuge for me."

Now, her home is surrounded by nature. The Grohmans – Elaine and her husband, Rich, an electrical contractor – live on a large property surrounded by carefully tended gardens. A vast expanse of green lawn behind the house ends with a large pond that draws all kinds of wildlife, from deer to herons.

In a quiet room overlooking the garden in front of the house, Grohman does her energy work. She also works with people in their homes, hospice settings and hospitals. While some experience what we commonly think of as physical healing – including complete remission after terminal diagnoses – that doesn't always happen.

"I've been at seven deaths," Grohman said. "Healing does not mean cure. It means release of pain, of trauma, of fear, so you can finally start to live."

She is clear that her place is not to take over and heal someone. Grohman said she's like a pair of "jumper cables," helping people recharge their own batteries – and heal themselves.

"I really see myself as an educator," Grohman said. "My hope is to travel a lot and help people understand what they can do for themselves, and demystify what energy healing is.

"I want people to know what I do is completely normal, and anyone can learn to do it if they want."