SOUL MEDICINE MODALITIES
IT’S ALL ABOUT ENERGY
The healing modalities offered by Simply Being, encourage clients to care for their deepest self.
The modalities focus on the person’s subtle and ethereal energy systems.
The modalities provided by Simply Being complement western medicine treatments.
Enhancing Your Vital Energy (Qi )
Chinese Medicine offers a concept of healing and creating your own path to wholeness. (Cohen p 3)
Chinese Medicine treats the mind/body and spirit as a whole (Cohen, 1996, Perigee Publication, The Chines Way to Healing). Its goal is to maintain or restore harmony and balance in all parts of the human being and between the human being and the environment.
According to Dechar (2006), TCM is based on the premise that the bodymind is a unified system with no distinction between physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual experience. (p 16). Each of these are an aspect of Qi (life force). Qi is constantly shifting between physical, psychic and spiritual states (p 16).
What is Qi?
According to the principles of traditional Chinese medicine, the body has invisible lines of energy flow called meridians. There are thought to be at least 12 meridians connecting our organs with other parts of the body. Acupuncture and acupressure points lie on those meridians.
In traditional Eastern thought, wellness comes from a properly balanced flow of chi; illness comes from an unbalanced or blocked flow of Qi. For example, the ancient traditional Chinese medicine art of acupuncture uses needles in specific body points to unblock and re-balance the flow of chi.
If the flow of Qi is blocked at any point on a meridian, it’s thought to cause various symptoms and health conditions anywhere along the meridian. That’s why a practitioner may apply pressure to an acupressure point on the foot to relieve a headache. Qi is life energy. Your body is a mixture of water, chemicals and chi. Qi is the essence that makes you alive.
THE FIVE ELEMENTS
Five Elements, (or Five phases) are used to describe the physiology of the mind/body/ spirit and to guide treatment.
The Five Elements represent the variations in our Qi. (A & J Hick, ‘Healing your emotions’ 1999, Thorsons p 6) This continual cycle occurs both in the external world and in human beings. Disharmony in or between Elements can impact the other interconnected Elements.
Emotions are of importance in the Five Elements. An imbalance within the Five Elements can result in repetitive negative states or difficulty in expressing certain emotions.
TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE
QIGONG
The practice of Qigong can provide an excellent foundation for recovering one’s health.
Qi is the Chinese word for ‘life energy’. It is a vital force. The term ‘gong’ means work or benefits acquired through perseverance and practice’. (Cohen 1997). Qigong therefore means working with life energy, learning how to control the flow and distribution of Qi to improve health and harmony of the mind and body.
Health Qigong is an holistic system of self healing exercises, meditation, breathing posture and movement. Health Qigong has been practiced for over two thousand years by monks and doctors and is based on the ancient system of acupuncture meridians.
Qigong techniques are suitable for men and women, young and old, athletes and sedentary, and for the disabled. Because Qigong includes both dynamic and gentle techniques that can be practiced from standing, seated, or supine postures, it is suitable for young and old. Practices can be tailored to individual needs making it an ideal aid to recovery from illness or injury. (https://www.qigonghealing.com/qigong-faqs)
In China Qigong is often used as an adjunct to conventional allopathic medical treatment. Hypertensive patients who take medication and practice Qigong fare better than controls who only take the medication. Similarly, there is evidence that Qigong can improve immune function and mental health, and prevent disabilities that come with age. https://www.qigonghealing.com/research-on-qigong
Programs offered include:
- Qigong in the Park
- Qigong is practiced at the Peace Park every Thursday morning at 10 am. Everyone is welcome to attend.
- Qigong at Simply Being
- Qigong is practiced in Colbee Court, Phillip every Wednesday at 12.00 midday. Please call 1800 844 867 to book in.
Qigong has the following key purposes
- To regulate the body (through movement),
- To regulate the breath (through breathing techniques),
- To regulate the mind focussing on the movement of energy through the meridians,
- To regulate the emotions through therapeutic sounds.
- The benefits of Qigong include:
- Improve energy flow along the meridians,
- Improve blood circulation,
- Reinforce the immune system,
- Establishing emotional equilibrium
- Bringing harmony and to breathing and body movements
- Increase the flexibility of the joints
- (Dominique Ferraro, 2000)
ACUPRESSURE
Acupressure is often called acupuncture without the needles. Instead of needles, acupressure involves the application of manual pressure (usually with the fingertips) to specific points on the body. Acupressure can be used to treat most of the same conditions as acupuncture. Indeed, for people who are very sensitive to needles, or who fear needles it is treatment of choice. In stimulating the points the practitioner uses the fingers and thumbs. Acupressure is the name given to the technique of stimulating the same points as acupuncture, but with pressure alone. Legend has it that acupressure is derived from an older method of treatment in which the body was not penetrated by needles.
The goal of acupressure (as well as other Chinese Medicine treatments), is to encourage the movement of Qi (“life energy”) through the meridians in the body. Chinese Medicine theory states that the constant flow of qi through these meridians is essential for a person to keep their health. If this energy flow is blocked, the body can no longer maintain the balance that is needed to maintain high energy and deal with health issues.
In acupressure, local symptoms are considered to be an expression of the condition of the body as a whole. Acupressure focuses on relieving pain and discomfort as well as on responding to tension before it develops into a disease; that is, before the constrictions and imbalances can do further damage.
CHINESE MASSAGE
Like acupressure, Chinese Massage is based on the theory of meridians. These meridians are a network of pathways which function to transport Qi and blood, to regulate Yin and Yang, to protect against external pathogens and to link the internal organs with the exterior. Blockage of meridians causes pain and is intimately connected with all health problems.
Chinese Massage is primarily focused on the meridians and on the acupoints where Qi gathers and can be easily manipulated.
Massage techniques are understood to affect the meridians by:
- activating qi and blood (in the sense of increasing its activity)
- regulating qi and blood (in the sense of dispersing stagnation and guiding counterflow)
- dredging the meridians ( in the sense of removing external pathogens like cold and damp)
Massage also relaxes the soft and connective tissues to ease spasm and increase flexibility and straightens the joints.
(planetherbs.com/research-center/therapies-articles/chinese-massage-therapy)
FIVE ELEMENT DIALOGUE
In the Chinese martial art of tai chi, there is a maxim that states: “The chi flows where the mind goes.” Your attention focuses your life energy. Being aware of your thoughts and how you focus your attention is an important step in creating the life you want for yourself.
Traditional Chinese Medicine has a rich foundation and broad knowledge. The early practice of the medicine involved a powerful psychological healing modality that can promote emotional healing and psychological and spiritual transformation.
The Five Elements provide a useful insight into the Soul. Each of the five Elements has its own nature, preferences, tendencies, needs emotional responses and psychospiritual function. (Lorie Eve Dechar, 2006).
Five Elements provides a useful paradigm to understand psychospiritual transformation. (Dechar (2006) p xix). Through the approach we are assisted to have an awareness of the conscious and unconscious processes affecting and affected by our spirit and soul.
Be the Master of Your Mind, Not Its Slave
Five Element dialogue provides us with a vocabulary to speak about the behaviour and function of the aspects of our spirt and soul. The vocabulary can provide a useful lens through which we approach our healing.
Most of our thinking patterns, what we believe and how we act was created by conditioned response; often either when we were children or to defend against threats that no longer exist.
In a sense, we act like robots, often using outdated software. Five Element dialogue is a process that allows you to better understand the unconscious conditioned thinking that often drives behaviours. This ancient modality of Chinese Medicine psychology provides an opportunity to live from a deeper place.
The problem is that most of us have not been taught how to do that.
ETHEREAL ENERGY SYSTEMS
Barbara Ann Brennan (a NASA Engineer) notes that healing forces cannot be explained through physical terms (p19) An understanding of healing must take us integrate the physical into the ethereal (p 20) As a stepping stone to wholeness we need to let go of self limiting definitions based on our Newtonian past of separated Barbara Ann Brennan (a NASA Engineer) parts and identify ourselves with being energy fields.
Barbara Ann Brennan (a NASA Engineer) states in her book ‘Hands of Light’ that ‘An important consequence of Einstein’s Relativity is the realisation that matter and energy are interchangeable. Mass is nothing but a form of energy. Mass is slowed down or crystallised energy. Our bodies are energy.’
In the 1920s, the physics moved into the strange and unexpected reality of the subatomic world. Experiments involving nature returned paradoxical answers. Physicists now accept that paradox is part of the sub atomic world upon which our physical reality exists.
Our old world of solid objects and deterministic laws of nature has dissolved into wave-like patterns of interconnections. The whole universe appears as a dynamic web of inseparable energy patterns. The universe is thus defined as a dynamic inseparable whole which includes the observer in an essential way. (p 25)
She argues that if the universe is in fact such a web, there is no such thing as a part. We are not separated parts of the a whole, We are a whole.
The ordinary model of the body consisting of systems (ie the digestive or cardiovascular) is insufficient. Dr Valorie Hunt argues that the body needs to be ‘viewed from a quantum concept of energy stemming from the atomic cellular nature of the functioning body, which cuts across all tissue and systems’.
Dr Khalsa (p20) argues to have any true workable knowledge of this [molecular] healing force, we must go beyond the physical, into the ethereal.”
These emerging concepts parallel the theories and practices of some ancient medical practices. For example everything is connected in TCM, hence it supports the interconnectedness of the body, Spirt and Soul. Everything we hear, feel, touch and detect is reflection of the underlying Qi. For health, the qi needs to be abundant, clear and flowing smoothly. Traumas and other life experiences can affect one’s spirit and soul, which in turn affects the quality and characteristics of the Qi. That is, the expression of Qi (through emotions, health and relationships) affects the underlying nature of Qi.
Some researchers believe the ethereal body can bring healing power to the physical body and the physical body can bring healing power to the ethereal body. Dr Khalsa argues that this view introduces artificial distinctions. We are all one, in body, mind and spirit.
Simply Being offers the following Etheric based healing modalities:
- Meditation as Medicine
- Yoga Nidra
- iRest
- Chakra Balancing
MEDICAL MEDITATION
Meditation as Medicine was developed by Dr Dharma Singh Khalsa. Dr Khalsa, a colleague of Deepak Chopra (MD) is a certified anaesthesiologist, and specialises in pain management and antiaging medicine.
Dr Khalsa notes that when practiced in conjunction with conventional medicine, Medical Meditation activates the healing force with you.
Medical Meditation works by directly impacting the body’s physical and ethereal bodies. Dr Dharma argues that the approach brings adaptability and regeneration to both of these aspects of our being. It helps the ethereal milieu to reinforce the physical health and it helps the physical milieu to reinforce ethereal health.
Medical Meditation achieves this through the powerful effects of:
- Breath
- Posture and movement,
- Mantras and
- Mental focus.
The combination of these attributes enables an effective mediation response.
The greatest advantage of medical meditation is its specificity. It is designed to channel healing to where it is most required – to targeted organs, glands and systems as well as the specific areas of the etheric body (through the chakras) (p10)
Meditation as Medicine creates the ‘mix of molecules of information for healing, the mind heals the body and the mind heals the body. At the same time the physical body heals the ethereal body and the ethereal body heals the physical body. And the Spirit – the divine spirit as well as the human spirit – pervades this entire healing milieu, adding a depth and a power that infuses the body and the mind with a healing force…’ (Dr Khalsa p19)
YOGA NIDRA
Yoga nidra (yogic sleep) is a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping; enabling a deep state of relaxation while maintaining full consciousness. The regular practice of yoga nidra reduces tension and anxiety. It therefore is useful for reducing symptoms of associated with increased anxiety and post traumatic stress.
iRest (Integrative Restoration)
This is a modern adaptation of the ancient practice of Yoga Nidra for easing stress and healing trauma. The developer of the approach (Richard Miller Ph.D) states that iRest is ‘a profoundly transformative practice derived from the ancient meditation approach of Yoga Nidra that leads to lasting psychological, physical and spiritual healing.’
Dr Miller notes that iRest accomplishes these benefits through:
- The embodiment of pure Awareness, and
- The release of long-standing self-destructive patterns.
Richard Miller notes that ‘iRest is integrative in that it heals the various negative emotions, beliefs and traumas that are present in your body and mind and restorative in that it reveals your underlying ground of equanimity and peace – your True Nature.’
‘iRest:
- teaches skills that you can use when encountering difficult situations,
- induces deep relaxation,
- enables deep meditation,
- assists body sensitivity,
- breath and awareness,
- assists relieve feelings of separation,
- offers the opportunity to experience of peace.
CHAKRA BALANCING
The primary purpose of Medical Meditation is to nurture the ethereal energy system which transfers its nurturance to the body. The transfer takes place through the chakras. Each of the chakras are associated with specific nerve plexus and endocrine glands. The ethereal energy is transmitted through these plexus and glands.
The chakras are a unique mix of material and non material energy. They are therefore exist equally in the realms of body, Spirit and Soul.
Each chakra has physical, spiritual and psychological characteristics.
Medical meditation amplifies the energies within the chakras. As Dr Khalsa states ”no illness exists on just the physical, or just the psychological or just the spiritual level. For illness to exist it must overpower the positive forces of all three levels. And the positive forces of all three levels must be restored to again overpower illness.”
HOPE CONSULTATION
HOPE CONSULTATION
The HOPE approach to healing and health promotion was designed by Dr Wayne Jonas. There are four dimensions to the HOPE:
1. Inner (perceptions, expectation and awareness held in the mind)
2. Interpersonal (social relationships and the culture in which we operate),
3. Behavioural (things and activities we pursue that impact our body’s healing ability) and
4. External ((physical environment in which we live).
Dr Jonas argues that the HOPE approach offers the opportunity use 80% of the unique and meaningful healing response provided by the patient.
The HOPE approach engages and unleashes the ‘inner healer’.
(Dr Wayne Jonas, ‘How Healing Works, Scribe Publication, 2018.)
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