So, what is Energy Healing anyway?

This was kind of a hard concept for me to learn, but once I understood it, I realized the applications were without limits! Think of all the systems you have in your body, you have a respiratory system, cardiovascular system, lymphatic system and craniosacral system, there are more, but these are just to name a few.

Believe it or not you have an energy system in your body. It took me some time and study to figure this one out, but once I did, wow, it is incredible. I have had people ask me, how can I be a Christian and be ok with energy work. Once I explain to them what I am about to explain to you, it becomes very clear that it is all science.

Speaking of science: Do you remember science class from when you were probably in high school? That part where they taught you about vibration? I remember my teacher in 9thgrade. He was teaching us about molecules and how they jump around and blend together and do all kinds of crazy things. Then he said something that has stuck with me for my whole life. He said that everything vibrates, or it would not exist. He pointed to a table and said if that table did not vibrate it would not exist. Everything is vibration. Everything is frequency. When you start there and understand that simple concept, everything else can fall into place.

Inside your body you have an electrical system; it is powered by water. Yes, we as Massage Therapists are famous for telling people to drink water. We call this the nervous system. If you think about your nervous system like the electrical system of your house it makes more sense. Your house has wires and the wires are covered with a plastic covering they run through, called conduits. In your body, you have branches of this nervous system. I think the most popular branch is the sciatic nerve system because it’s pretty large and gets pinched pretty easily, but it’s all connected. Your nerves are surrounded by a myelin sheath as a protective layer. So where does the electricity go? I believe that it travels through another set of conduits called meridians. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the meridians are considered to carry the vital life force or KI. These meridians are responsible for affecting different parts of your system. I have found that just like the lymphatic system, this system also can get stuck. Energy in the body flows like a river and just like a river, it can get debris and can get dammed up. Debris can be caused by either something physical, like an adhesion or emotional, like stress or trauma. Believe it or not, we stuff emotions all throughout our body into the muscles, tendons, fascia, and even cells. This stuffing of emotions affects our body with pain. I have to admit I was a bit surprised when I learned that, because I always thought we stored everything emotional in our brain. Pretty exciting though to know that there are other places in the body where especially specific emotions are normally stored.

I remember one time I was working on a client and could not get the glutes (Gluteus Maximus, Gluteus Medius, and the Gluteus Minimus muscles) to release at all. I felt prompted to work on the hips and glutes with shiatsu massage modality, which is a modality that aligns the meridians. At the time, I really didn’t understand all of this and really did not like shiatsu. It seemed weird like voodoo. Who came up with this stuff anyway, I thought? But I am obedient when I have promptings, so I obeyed. I was in shock when the muscles in the hip and glute suddenly released! It was at that moment when I began to formulate understanding of this particular system. I’m not quite done with learning about it though.

Also in your house you have something called a breaker box. With this idea, I began to understand the purpose of our chakras. Each of your chakras or energy centers has a frequency. They have been studied and observed to spin. I learned that the frequency of the chakra resonates with a sound and a letter. So when you see colors associated with the chakra or as I call them energy centers (aka breaker switches) it is the color associated with the sound and the pattern is the shape the sound makes in sand. I know that you think this sounds more like voodoo. You can look up on YouTube for really cool videos of salt or sand taking shape in a plate infused with sound. It is all science. So how many chakras do you really have?

We have 7 main chakras. Every other chakra in your body is tied to one of the main chakras along a prime meridian. These chakras line up along the center of your body or in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) it’s called your conception vessel or central meridan, starting at your root. (That place where you connect with the earth when you sit with your legs criss-crossed, or the bottom of your bottom is the root or place where you are rooted.) It goes all the way up to the bottom lip then on the back side running from the same starting place, up your back over top of your head and to the top lip. This line being known as the governing meridian, they are in fact connected. Now, before those of you who are educated on chakras get worried, yes, there are more than 7 that run this line. In fact there have been studies that have found these energy centers to run outside the body and into the aura both above the body and below the body. So we have those that say there are 12 chakras that run the middle of the body. Beyond that, we also have chakras in every joint in the body. As I have studied it, these other chakras are all related in some way back to one of the main 7 chakras. Seriously cool! Studies have shown that we have a total of 114 chakras and 72,000 energy channels. That is a super complex energetic system for sure!

Of course now you are wondering about the aura in all of this. The question I have for you is this: Would it stand to reason that all of that energy coming out from your energy system can possibly produce a field around you? Even similar to the field we have around the earth? Did you know that as your influence expands and your vibration level increases so does the field or aura around you? I don’t think we know for sure how many layers of aura we have, but it is interesting to know that there are 7 main layers AND they are associated with one of the main chakras or energy centers! Modern technology is incredible and has created cameras that can capture the color surrounding you and also there are people with gifts that can actually see the color of the aura around others.

How does all of this apply to these energy work modalities? Well, science has shown us that there is no empty space. There is energy all around us and we emit energy and we pass energy. In the Electrical world they would call it completing a circuit. I actually have a fun toy I use in classes to demonstrate this concept. There have been studies on the power of words. (See YouTube the rice experiment or messages in water.) It is safe to say that human interaction is the power of energy exchange for good or for bad. Our intention sends the energy out and actually can create a boomerang effect on the type of energy we get back in return, completing a circuit.

It is important to understand that these methods never should be used to replace traditional medical care, or to diagnose or treat any medical condition. For medical conditions please make sure to refer back to your doctor or mental health professional.

In energy work we work directly with the energy system to affect balance, through methods of releasing trapped emotions which free up space or those energy dams we talked about allowing communication within the body to function at a higher level of frequency. We can find blockages or places that are unbalanced through applied kinesiology simply known as muscle testing. We can also use visualization, which by the way is a very powerful form of energy work to release tension and stress. One of the things most mis understood is the body’s biocomputer. when we do these types of energy work, we are literally tapping into the biocomputer to open files associated with a specific goal we have in mind. For instance, Say you have a goal that you would like to have better range of motion in your neck. Using our tools with energy work, we can find indications that may have a trapped emotion in the neck. we could also find that there is miscommunication happening between meridians causing discomfort. using the opposing muscle theory created by Dr. John Goodheart, we can circuit locate to find disturbances causing one muscle to not fire while another muscle is overworked. Whether we are releasing trapped energy (emotions) or circuit locating to align meridian flow, Energy work utilizes different tools like light therapy, applied kinesiology, craniosacral, to harmonize the energy systems for stress relief and body balancing. As we talked about earlier, these methods are never to replace your medical health professional. we love and appreciate all that our medical doctors do, in fact I have a son who would not have survived without modern medical intervention. When we understand how well all types of healing work together we can create a whole balance in understanding our role in our responsibility for our health and well-being.