Positive Health Online

What is Energy Medicine?

Energy Medicine (EM) is the oldest, most organic, most instinctive and most effective form of healthcare that exists. It exists in every country, in every community and it has existed since we were first living in collective groups or tribes.

Energy Medicine is an umbrella term that gathers all modalities that have at their foundation the paradigm of energy, rather than the paradigm of bio-medical reductionism: Acupuncture, Shamanism, Reiki, Touch for Health, Reflexology...If I listed the modalities that work within energy medicine principles the list would fill many pages of this publication.

The course of physics was irrevocably altered when Albert Einstein delivered his famous formula, E=mc2, showing that matter is a form of energy, or (very loosely translated!) “Energy is all there is”. In our science, old and new, we know our bodies are comprised of molecules that are in constant motion and that are continually being influenced by outside forces. More recent work done by scientists such Bruce Lipton and Candace Pert further develops such scientific understanding into mainstream science and medicine. We are all aware that the medical profession utilizes electromagnetic fields with devices such as EKGs, EEGs, and MRIs and the vital role these energies play in our everyday health and well-being is well established. But for many practising more mainstream medicine, the concept of working with our more subtle energy bodies rather than those at the densest (physical) level is still a step beyond their worldview. But such understanding is increasing daily.

Dr Mehmet Oz,  Director of the Cardiovascular Institute at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons describes Energy Medicine as “the next big frontier in medicine”, and he is right! And the exciting thing is that we are already seeing Energy Medicine, in the form of acupuncture for example, sitting alongside conventional medicine approaches within our NHS. And that is exactly where I feel it should sit. For many years I worked in an Integrative Science Dept that helped to explore experiencing life through ‘Two-Eyed Seeing’- weaving between the understandings of mainstream science and the science of indigenous peoples,  it offered a guiding principle for transcultural collaboration by learning to see from one eye with the best in the Indigenous ways of knowing, and from the other eye with the best in the Western (or mainstream) ways of knowing, and to learn to use both these eyes together for the benefit of all. My work in Canada with Elders of the Mi’kmaq First Nation taught me how to apply this approach to the field of medicine, looking for the two very different healthcare systems to exist alongside each other, supporting and aiding each client together.

Donna and Prune

So for several years I have trained with one of Energy Medicine’s foremost pioneers, Donna Eden. Her books, Energy Medicine and Energy Medicine For Women, are read all over the world and are used as text books in many healing schools, because of their wonderful ability to explain the 9 energy systems in terms that make sense to everyone. (For those of you who are wondering, the 9 energy systems are: Chakras, Meridians, Electrics, Grid, Aura, Triple Warmer, the 5 Rhythms, the Radiant Circuits, the Celtic Weave). Here in the UK, we do not live in a culture that is fluent in the language of energy. Most of us know of auras and chakras, perhaps of meridians, but do we know how to balance them, connect them to other systems and keep our energies strong, harmonized and radiant?  It is within our easy ability to do that, at home, in the office, in the park. It really isn’t a mystery, we just need the language.

And that is why I trained with Donna Eden, to empower clients with the language they need to thrive in their lives.

Principles of EM

I have been able to see energy since I was tiny and could always work with it intuitively. For years I was a Reiki practitioner and teacher and combined energy work with body work. But I began to get frustrated. So often, a client would walk in the door of my practice, and I would see what was going on with their energies. I could inform of it, work with them during the session, bringing balance and harmony and they would leave feeling (and looking) much better. Then the next time that client would walk in, with a few exceptions, we were back at the starting point with their energies reflecting the habits and patterns that they were living within. It was a cycle of adjustment and correction without the majority of people actually getting to the point where they began to truly thrive in their health and their life.  And to understand this we need to understand the principles of energy medicine.

The first is that energy has to move. When it stops moving we are dead! So if you are reading this article then you can be sure that your energy systems are moving.

The second principle is that energy moves in patterns. That is why so many of our energy systems are uniform across the animal kingdom (well, at least the vertebrates that we ourselves belong to). I can look at an animal no matter what size or shape and see their energy systems move in the same way ours do. The energy meridians in your dog or hamster follow almost identical paths to those within your own body. And this is verified not only by thousands of years of documented practice in the East, but by modern scientific instruments that can read the various channels of energy that we have in our body and accurately measure the hotspots (the acupoints) on them.

Another pattern that we have throughout our body, and indeed is one of the unifiers of our energy systems, is the figure 8. From the cell level of the DNA double helix, out to the broadest reaches of our biofield (aura) figure 8s weave through us harmonizing, healing, connecting. There is a reason that the figure 8 is known throughout many of the ancient cultures as the infinity pattern...we are all familiar with the language of energy, it has just been removed from our conscious understanding by our emersion in a culture that no longer validates it.

When we live with stress, tiredness or illness, our energy patterns have to adapt to try to accommodate the whole system changes that we go through at these times; this is a wonderful adaptive strategy that we share with others in our animal kingdom. When we watch a documentary of a gazelle being chased by a lioness we see the instinctive, intuitive awareness of danger, the chase, and (if the gazelle is lucky and the lioness is not!), we see the lioness tire, stop and the gazelle sprint away. But now comes the vital part....at this point the gazelle stops, looks around to check it is all over, does an all body shiver shake and then puts its head down and continues its grazing. In other words, the extreme stress explodes upon the chemical, psychological, emotional, physical scene, and then leaves just as quickly. What is more unique to our species at this time in our evolution, is that for many of us, we would describe our stress as continual. Unique to us as humans is that we live day in day out with high level stress (our relationships, the news, our commute to work, choosing what to eat/wear/think/say/cook...we are all familiar with the reality of our fast-paced modern-life situation). And because of this our energy patterns, that are formed as a response to immediate stress, begin to develop into deep seated energetic habits. And if they are held as habits in our energy fields, then they are held as habits in our physical body, in what we experience, in what we create, and in how we expect to be received by life.

This brings us to a third principle of EM that imbalances show up in the energy systems before they somatize in the physical, so when we can bring balance to the energy then we can prevent imbalance or dis-ease from showing up in the physical. In other words, we don’t have to wait until we develop a problem or have a diagnosis. Using energy testing we can find the balances and imbalances in the energy systems to not only prevent illness, but to evolve your current energy systems to bring optimum health and vibrancy

So I hope that I am building a picture here of the vital importance on knowing how to manage your own energies. It really isn’t enough to rely on a practitioner to keep patching you up. As practitioners we have wonderful skills and great opportunity to facilitate a client’s healing, but it can be so much more complete and enduring when each client also has the understanding of their own systems and ways in which they can continually be evolving their own energy bodies towards optimum health.

Working with EEM

One of the foundations of working with Eden Energy Medicine (EEM) is to do a daily energy routine to keep your energy systems in their healthiest, most connective form. Designed to influence all nine systems this 5 minute routine is easy and fun to do and can start affecting your health immediately. You can easily follow Donna Eden doing this 5 minute routine on YouTube, simply type in Donna Eden and ‘5 minute routine’.  I have seen people who are compromised in their health have incredible results simply by working with these techniques.

I often get asked what an Eden Energy Medicine session looks like...in other words, what do I do? Firstly, I use kinesiology to assess your energy systems and find the strengths and imbalances within your own unique energy. Then we begin to work to bring about the corrections. This may be through acupressure, working with specific points in the body that can access the electric system, clearing blockages in the aura or chakra (or any number of procedures that are teachable in 4 years!). Then we track your energy and the effect of the corrective practices. For the most part you, as a client, are lying on the table, although for some of the testing you may be asked to walk or move. In my Eden Energy Medicine practice I have worked with clients experiencing every form of energy imbalance from arthritis to back pain, cancer to IBS, clients who are in unhappy relationships to those wanting to enter into a relationship, bladder issues, prolonged grief, scoliosis and hormones, hormones, hormones! EEM works wonders on those subtle yet powerful chemicals that can rule our bodies and there is no coincidence that many of my clients and students are women looking for help to balance their hormones.

It is never too early or too late to learn how to understand your energy systems, their strengths, challenges and their remarkable interconnectiveness., Every day I see my clients bring health, balance, purpose and joy into their lives and despite being an advanced practitioner and teacher of EEM (who really should know better!) I feel amazed and delighted....this stuff truly works!

Bibliography

1. Bengston W. The Energy Cure. Sounds True. Boulder. 2010.
2. Eden D and Feinstein D. Energy Medicine. Piatkus. 2008.
3. Eden D and Feinstein D. Energy Medicine for Women. Piatkus. 2009.
4. Feinstein D. and Eden D. Six pillars of energy medicine. Alternative Therapies, 14(1), 44-54. 2008.
5. Lipton B. Biology of Belief. Hay House. London. 2011.
6. Pert C. The Molecules of Emotion. Simon & Schuster. New York. 1999.
7. Swanson C. Life Force: the Scientific Basis. Poseidia Press. Tucson. 2003.