"Energy Medicine is the future of medicine" Dr. Mehmet Oz
"You are a latticework of energies. The enormous implications of this fact are the basis of energy medicine. " Donna Eden, "Energy Medicine"
According to Richard Gerber M.D., "The ultimate approach to healing will be to remove the abnormalities at the subtle-energy level which led to the manifestation of illness in the first place"
Norm Shealy, M.D., founding president of the American Holistic Medical Association, has flatly stated, "energy medicine is the future of all medicine."
"This approach is both contemporary and ancient...According to Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel laureate in Medicine: In every culture, in every medical tradition before ours, healing was accomplished by moving energy" (Energy Medicine, by Donna Eden)
In this post, I want to give a basic explanation of what energy medicine is all about.
We are all familiar with the physical systems of the body--the ones we learn about in school: Skeletal System, Muscular System, Cardiovascular System, Digestive System, Endocrine System, Nervous System, Respiratory System, and Immune / Lymphatic Systems. In addition to these physical systems, we also have a complex network of energy systems that make up the subtle infrastructure of every body.
Ours is, sadly, the only culture that doesn't teach about our energy systems in addition to our physical systems. Our westernized system of allopathic medicine is the only medical system in the world which focuses entirely on the physical systems of the body, to the exclusion of our energetic systems. The results have been quite tragic!
The idea that we have a complex matrix of energetic systems that support, shape, and animate the physical body is by no means a new idea. Numerous cultures all over the world have studied, identified, mapped, and used these energies for healing for thousands of years; the energy systems of the body are called qi or chi in China, Prana in the yoga tradition of India and Tibet, ruach in Hebrew, ki in Japan, baraka by the Sufis, wakan by the Lakotas, orenda by the Iroquois, and megbe by the Ituri Pygmies. These many cultures agree that the "subtle" (or unseen) energies of the body operate in tandem with the "physical" body systems. Every culture who has studied and worked with these energies are in agreement of two very important facts:
1) our energetic systems reflect the health of our physical body. If the physical body is ill, or an organ or system is struggling, a corresponding disruption can be measured in the energy systems. In fact, as science catches up with equipment that can actually measure and monitor the subtle energies produced by our energy systems, scientists are finding that the disruption in the energy field actually precedes the physical symptoms of an illness! Think about that for a minute....An illness or disease (which is simply an "imbalance" somewhere in the body) can be detected in the energy field before we ever show any physical symptoms...Remarkable!
2) Scientists are also realizing that our energy systems govern our physical systems. That means that if an imbalance or disruption occurs in our energy system, and is left uncorrected, it can eventually cause physical illness in the organs, tissue or body systems it feeds energy to. In my post upcoming post, The 5 Levels of Healing, I'll talk more about the vital importance of healing imbalances and illnesses at the level they originated!
This is why Energy Medicine is so valuable (and where our current medical system falls short): if you are trying to correct symptoms that are manifesting in the physical body but that originated with an imbalance in the energy system, you cannot address it at the physical level. You must address it at the level it originated!
The Energies of Energy Medicine
Energy is all around us. It is an inescapable part of the world we live in. It takes many forms--electrical, magnetic, kinetic, thermal, chemical, nuclear. The energies that are most pertinent to energy medicine encompass various combinations of the body's electrical energies, electromagnetic energies and "subtle" energies.
Electricity involves the movement of electrons and protons. Like a miniature battery, every cell in the body stores and emits electricity. Every breath we take, every muscle we move, every morsel of food we digest involves electrical activity. Likewise, our memories, feelings and thoughts are encoded in patterns of tiny electrical impulses.
Albert Einstein describes "subtle" energies as energies we know of because of their effects, but do not have the instruments to detect directly. Interestingly enough, electromagnetism was in this category only 250 years ago. It's effects could be observed, but electromagnetism could not, itself, be measured. Of course, today we have a number of scientific instruments that routinely measure this "subtle" energy.
Energy healers today work within the energy fields of the body...While the subtle energies that make up our energy systems may not move a gauge on a scientific instrument, many healers know how to engage them to restore health and vitality.
A device has, in fact, been developed at Stanford University that has demonstrated the existence of an energy field that is not in the electromagnetic spectrum. Most interestingly, this device, created by Dr. William Tiller, has shown that this subtle energy field responds to human intention. If you think negative thoughts, the field exhibits measurably different qualities that are different than those involved if you think positive thoughts.
Those of us that practice Energy medicine believe that the basic energy systems of the body, the chakras, meridians, and the aura, may include any combination of these types of energy. A Chakra, for example, can be measured according to electromagnetic frequencies in the area of the body where the chakra is located. It also contains information that a sensitive person can "read" intuitively by becoming attuned to the subtle energies held by that chakra.
Measuring Subtle Energies
Changes measured in light emissions emanating from the chakras and meridians correspond with the energetic shifts that follow meditation, acupressure,
acupuncture, or other energy healing treatments. Such devices can even anticipate illness. Shifts in meridian activity, for instance, have predicted changes in physical conditions that have occurred hours, days, and sometimes even weeks later.
Your "energy body" is made up of a complex, organized system of energetic fields. It is the subtle counterpart of your physical body, and it is more responsive to many kinds of influences than you physical body is.
Your energy fields hold the blueprint to your physical body's health.
Treatments that affect your energy systems reverberate throughout your entire system.
In my post Leaves and Roots, I talked about the importance of tracing an ailment--whether it is physical such as an ache or pain, or emotional, such as depression, anxiety, anger, sadness, etc--to the root cause. In order to heal from anything, we must address it on the level it originated! We will talk more about this when I address the 5 Levels of Healing.
Hopefully what you have learned in this post impresses upon your mind the importance of identifying the root cause of an issue, and dealing with it on that level. If an imbalance originates on the physical level, then interventions on that level are appropriate. But if a physical ailment started out as a disruption in one of the energy systems that feeds energy to that area of the body, then it MUST be corrected at that level. Interventions on the physical level would only offer partial or temporary relief.
This probably explains why medication works wonders for some sufferers of depression, while it does nothing for others...or how your dr. can tell you he's done everything he can for your pain or illness, and can't find anything else physically wrong with you (maybe there IS nothing physically wrong with you...or nothing wrong with your physical systems, to be precise. It may be your energy systems that are sick!)
If you treat an issue at the wrong "level" of the body, you will never find true healing, not really. I'll re-state what I said earlier, because it is so vitally important to understand:
Your energy fields hold the blueprint to your physical body's health.
Treatments that affect your energy systems reverberate throughout your entire system.
This is why the Field of Energy Medicine is so valuable as a complement to our traditional medical model. Mainstream medicine only concerns itself with the physical systems of the body, yet as I hope I've shown you, there is really so much more!
In my next post, I'll talk about the Energy Systems of the body, and the purpose and function of each. Read it HERE
Your energy fields hold the blueprint to your physical body's health.
Treatments that affect your energy systems reverberate throughout your entire system.
In my post Leaves and Roots, I talked about the importance of tracing an ailment--whether it is physical such as an ache or pain, or emotional, such as depression, anxiety, anger, sadness, etc--to the root cause. In order to heal from anything, we must address it on the level it originated! We will talk more about this when I address the 5 Levels of Healing.
Hopefully what you have learned in this post impresses upon your mind the importance of identifying the root cause of an issue, and dealing with it on that level. If an imbalance originates on the physical level, then interventions on that level are appropriate. But if a physical ailment started out as a disruption in one of the energy systems that feeds energy to that area of the body, then it MUST be corrected at that level. Interventions on the physical level would only offer partial or temporary relief.
This probably explains why medication works wonders for some sufferers of depression, while it does nothing for others...or how your dr. can tell you he's done everything he can for your pain or illness, and can't find anything else physically wrong with you (maybe there IS nothing physically wrong with you...or nothing wrong with your physical systems, to be precise. It may be your energy systems that are sick!)
If you treat an issue at the wrong "level" of the body, you will never find true healing, not really. I'll re-state what I said earlier, because it is so vitally important to understand:
Your energy fields hold the blueprint to your physical body's health.
Treatments that affect your energy systems reverberate throughout your entire system.
This is why the Field of Energy Medicine is so valuable as a complement to our traditional medical model. Mainstream medicine only concerns itself with the physical systems of the body, yet as I hope I've shown you, there is really so much more!
In my next post, I'll talk about the Energy Systems of the body, and the purpose and function of each. Read it HERE