Positive Health Online

In the Biology classes, I was more interested in my schoolmates’ headaches and pains than the study of parts of the body. I would be asking in a whisper, ‘Now where is the headache? Good, good, stay with it, can you feel the chi energy being with it? Melting it, melt into it further..... So, now what happens when you allow it to melt into chi?’ My friend would remark, ‘It’s gone!’

When I left school and started working, I found myself giving chi healing, chi massage, Tai-Chi and Chi Kung lessons to my work colleagues and bosses. While I was working, I kept up my study of chi energy.

For readers unfamiliar with the term, ‘Chi,’ this word translated from Chinese means “Intrinsic energy.” In India, the Yogis call it, ‘Prana.’ Chi energy can be experienced, according to all Teachers of this Art, by balancing the Yin/Feminine/ Receptive and Yang/Masculine/Emissive principles within your life. Tai-Chi and Chi Kung are Chinese exercises based on these principles. Many alternative therapists call this ‘Life-force’. There are so many varying applications of this life-force to achieve a balanced state of health, rejuvenation and harmony. You can practise balancing your energies purely on one level or a mixture of different levels. On the physical level you can use medication, diet, sleeping patterns, change of jobs and relationships to find a better balance of Yin and Yang in your lifestyle. You might also go to a counsellor or therapist to help you find a more balanced perspective about some emotional issues. When you feel the need to share about some pressing emotional issues, this ‘need to share’ is the Yang Principle. The presence of a receptive person listening helps you find a balance with the Yin principle. An overworked person is too Yang and will feel better when he or she relaxes (Yin). As for someone who is too Yin in mental attitude, in the sense of being too self-conscious, analytical and introverted, he might feel more balance if he does some kind of physical activity that helps him unwind and be a more confident person. When you balance the Yin and Yang aspects of your life, you will feel new energy, better health and more enthusiasm in your life.

As a teenager, I also explored the use of chi force in martial arts. When I went deeper into this area, I found myself curious about how to apply the principle of self-defence in the area of health. I wanted to learn how to defend myself against my own inner fears, restlessness, nervosity, pain, illness and stress and help other people learn it too. I decided to deepen my studies of chi energy and search for more teachers. I have been fortunate to meet wise teachers such as Master Mantak Chia, Professor Jou Tsung Hwa, Dr Yang Jwing Ming and Dr. T.K. Shih.

Whatever I learned from my teachers I found some kind of application of the principles in my daily life. For example, I felt that there was a correlation between chi meridians and ‘ley line energies’ of the earth. This made even a simple walk in the city or country side very interesting. My chi kung teachers told me that for thousands of years it has been claimed that chi is an intelligent energy and able to express through infinite forms. Little did I know that that also included insects.

For those of you who know about chi, you might like to try out this experiment. When the weather gets humid in summer go into the forest and allow the mosquitoes to come to you. As they zoom in to settle on your skin, just before they start ‘sucking your blood’, direct your chi energy the way an acupuncturist would pinpoint the needle. Direct the chi energy to the mosquitoes with peace and then see what happens. If you still feel irritated or nervous or itchy you need to practise more. When you can feel your own tingling energy strongly being with that part of your body and the mosquito, I assure you that when your own hair is standing on end (like electricity passing through you), the mosquitoes are experiencing their own tiny little hairs standing on ends too!! They need to learn to be peaceful and stop irritating me or anyone else.

Another exciting discovery I made for myself is that if you can focus your chi energy at points as tiny as a mosquito bite, you can focus healing energy like a laser beam on any part of your body, internally or externally.

I do feel grateful to have found a vocation where I can put my whole being into it and enjoy it. I have now been practising these ancient arts of chi healing for the past 25 years and have been training instructors for the last 10 years. What is very exciting for me is that my advanced students who are studying chi healing as a vocation to help others have produced some beneficial results already. The extraordinary results are based on their understanding of the simple Taoist laws of balancing their Yin/feminine qualities and Yang/masculine qualities first and then extending this creative healing energy to help others.

So, how does chi healing work?

Chi Healing is for the whole person. In our system of chi healing, there is a great deal of emphasis on the heart/body/ mind/spirit approach. What is the heart/ body/mind/spirit approach to chi healing? There are a number of guidelines which are being used in our chi healing courses:

1. Heart-beat listening

In Chinese medical theory, the heart is the ‘governor’ of the chi energies flowing in the body. So, it is not only important to listen to the ‘governor’ but the ‘governor’ needs to be given the space to listen to his or her subjects too!!

Learning to feel the rhythm of your heart builds a bridge between you, the earth’s rhythms, the universe’s rhythms and the client’s rhythms. The chi healer has to practise this firstly for himself intensively for at least 6 months and integrate this heartfelt awareness in relation to his daily living. Why is this important in chi healing? It slows down the mind to feel the chi energy present in his body and activate a sense of wholeness in the healing process.

A client may come to a session without any specific ailment or illness to work with. However, after the heart connection is made, the chi healer can sense where the healing needs to take place.

2. Tan-tien (Belly) centre breathing

You increase your sense of concentration when you focus on your breathing. There are different kinds of techniques of breathing. Breathing from the abdomen is an important part of the healing, so that the client can ‘sink’ the heart energy into the tan-tien centre. ‘Tan-tien’ translated from Chinese means, ‘Centre of life, the sea of life,’ usually located about two finger widths beneath the navel centre. Concentrating the breath and heart-awareness on the tan-tien can help centre you and conserve energy. Like a storehouse, in times of need, it can offer support and help to other unhealthy parts of the body hungry for healing chi energy.

3. The healing hand is a listening palm

The heart/belly centre alignment leads the patient and chi healer to sense blockages at different meridian points and meridian lines of energy. Sometimes the chi healer is like a traffic policeman waving his hands to signal the traffic to move on and free up the flow and restore harmony.

To do this correctly, the chi healer has to pause and allow his or her palm to ‘listen’ to the body’s energies speaking to him or her. The body enjoys speaking to you in different mediums.

Some patients ‘see’ black/grey spots transform into brilliant white lights, and others ‘feel’ different sensations such as heaviness/lightness, sharpness/smoothness and hot/cold breeze.

If there are unusually strong blockages, an effortless and gentle movement of the palm to ‘pull out’ the blockages can be interpreted as simply returning heavy energy back to the earth. Everything that feels heavy sinks into the ground. The earth naturally transforms the ‘dirty’ energy into valuable compost!! The end results are often a sense of freedom, ease, comfort and release from pain. It is helping the person to return effortlessly to a harmonious state of well-being.

4. Clear verbal and silent levels of communication between chi healer and client are as essential as their common focus on the chi energy as the guide

Clients and chi healers are encouraged to communicate with each other at first verbally, and then gradually flow into a deeper and deeper sense of well-being. Trusting the chi energy to be an intelligent guide is paramount to the success of every healing.

Four months ago, as part of their training, four Advanced Foundation Tai-Chi and Chi Kung students were asked to do a chi healing Fieldwork project individually in their own locality. They invited students, friends, working colleagues and relatives to have a taste of chi healing and find out how it could benefit them. A total of 120 chi healing sessions were conducted. Clients were also informed clearly that chi healing methods can be used in cooperation with conventional medical treatments and complementary/alternative health therapies.

Feedback forms were filled in after each session and signed by each client. Two weeks after the session, a follow-up questionnaire was filled in by the client. It gave a lot of insights into the effectiveness of the chi healing experience. We have now received 81 feedback forms.

The first question in the feedback form asked the client to describe the nature of their stress/pain/illness. Some people also provided a detailed description of their medical history. The majority of the people described aches and pains in the neck, shoulder, chest, lower back and joints. One third of the cases were about persons suffering from arthritis, asthma, headaches, numbness and stiff muscles in different parts of the body caused by accidents.

The second question was about what other forms of treatment and medication they were using to deal with their stress/pain/ illness. From the category of those who used medication, about 50% used conventional forms of treatment, such as pain-killers as prescribed by doctors. The other half used herbal and alternative methods to work on their issues before coming to the session.

The third question was, ‘What effect did the chi healing have on your stress/pain/illness? 95% of the answers were centred around the feeling of relaxation, freedom from the pain/stress/    illness and calmness. Clients also used phrases such as, ‘I feel tingling warmth’ and ‘I was aware of a rippling energy’, when they reflected on the impact of the chi healing on the specific areas of their bodies in question.

Clients were also asked how they felt after the chi healing session. 90% felt more centred, peaceful, happier and their pain/stress/illness either improved dramatically or disappeared completely.

They were also asked to give an estimation (from 1 to 10) as to what they thought of the chi healer’s ability to assess their situation. We wanted to know how receptive the healers were (the higher the score the better they thought they were understood by the healers) to their needs. They gave a remarkable average score of 9.2 in praise of the healers’ high degree of receptivity.

Clients who suffered from stress and physical pains healed during the session reported a total recovery.

Clients complaining of Hypertension, Angina, Osteoporosis, Blocked energy in the solar plexus, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, High Blood Pressure, Inflammation of Muscles, Exhaustion, Sciatica and Shingles, reported an increased sense of self-confidence and improvement in health and general sense of well being. These were usually people who carried on to practise the Tai-Chi and Chi Kung exercises they were shown during the session or before the session.

A third of the clients also asked for more weekly Chi Healing treatments.

What are some conclusions from their feedback?

Firstly, people who have been regularly practising their Tai-Chi and Chi Kung exercises before and /or after the sessions were able to achieve more satisfactory healing results than those who did not. They were able to tune in better to the chi healing frequency and initiated their own self-healing processes. Many people included other alternative health treatments and practices which were complementary to their Tai-Chi and Chi Kung sessions, such as Alexander Technique, Aromatherapy, Homoeopathy, Reflexology, Osteopathy, Acupuncture, Meditation and Yoga.

On the other hand, there were also some people who did not believe in chi healing or any kind of complementary/alternative health therapies. For some of these people, their critical attitude did not stop them from remarking at the end, ‘Hey, it works!’ This category were people suffering from headaches, neck pains, shingles, back aches, muscular strains and numbness.

Thirdly, some healing effects lasted from a few hours to a few days. These were people returned back to stressful lifestyles and unsupportive familiar environments.

I do believe however, that some seeds have been sown and may sprout at the right time. The gift of a chi healing experience is that both healer and patient benefit. As the patient experiences the healing energy pulsating through him or her, so does the chi healer. These experiences remind us that the inner dimensions of healing harmony really exist and are accessible when we slow down to find our way back home again and have another taste of energising health, harmony and peace.