Dr. Don Glassey | OfSpirit

Life energy, in the form of cerebrospinal fluid, flows within, through and around the body over three inter-related and interconnected energy systems that interface with each other. The three energy systems are, from a gross to a subtler and more refined level, the nervous, the meridian, and the chakra systems.

In the nervous system, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flows within and around the brain and spinal cord (central nervous system) within a three layered “saran wrap” like covering called the meninges. It has been suggested that CSF also flows in the periphery of the body within the neuroglial connective tissue transportation system and communication network. Therefore, rather than ending at a cavity-like cul-de-sac at the place where the peripheral nerves exit the spinal cord (intervertebral foramen), the CSF would then circulate throughout the entire body.

In the meridian system, acupuncturists physically trace the life energy (chi/ki) by palpation as it flows within the connective tissue of the body. Radioisotope studies in Russia and China have confirmed the pathways in which (chi/ki) circulates. The framework of the connective tissue is composed of microscopic tubules called collagen fibrils. It has also been suggested that CSF may flow through this microcirculatory system in the connective tissue via the tubular passages (lumina) of collagen fibrils, and that theoretically “chi” and CSF are one and the same.
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healingarts | May 3, 2005 |

Dharma Singh Khalsa, from The Pain Cure: The Proven Medical Program that Helps End Your Chronic Pain

Pain is a more terrible Lord of mankind than even death itself. —Albert Schweitzer

Torture Victims

If you are in chronic pain, you probably feel alone and frightened. You may feel helpless. You might even feel as if life’s no longer worth living. I understand. I understand completely. You have the worst medical problem a person can have.

Chronic pain is the most devastating physical malady that exists. It’s even more overwhelming than having a terminal illness, according to patients of mine who have suffered from both conditions.

Being in pain, hour after hour, day after day, rips away your strength, your hope, your personality, and even your love.

Chronic pain is a demonic force that can destroy everything it touches.

But people are strong. I’m constantly amazed by their courage. When life knocks them down, they struggle back up. They do it again and again, all their lives.

If you’re a pain patient who is reading this page right now, you must certainly be strong, because you’re still trying to find a way out of your suffering. Despite everything, you still have hope. I salute your bravery. In my eyes, you’re a hero.
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healingarts | May 2, 2005 |

John Herlihy | OfSpirit

A personal encounter with the mysterious cures of acupuncture that for thousands of years has successfully addressed the perennial ailments and promoted the health and well being of countless people the world over.

Utter the word acupuncture in polite company and images of oversized needles and Chinese doctors searching for a crucial nerve may come to mind. At best, people may think of acupuncture as a medical cure effective for others, but not for themselves. At worst, the instinctive horror of needles, like the terror of the dentist’s drill, puts people off any thought of approaching this alternative source of medicine without a second thought. In the medically advanced Western societies, many people even consider this ancient traditional wisdom to be a raw and radical new alternative to the progressive, techno-based Western approach to medicine. Perhaps the time has finally arrived to demystify the aura of uncertainty that still surrounds the modern-day practice of acupuncture.
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healingarts | April 28, 2005 |

Dr. Farah Khan | OfSpirit

Many women have resigned themselves to the monthly emotional and physical roller coaster that their menstrual period brings. Psychological symptoms include weepiness, moodswings, irritability, anger, and depression. Physical symptoms can include bloating, cramping, backaches, breast tenderness, food cravings, headaches, acne, and digestive problems.

Oriental medicine has developed treatment for the many complaints of pre-menstrual syndrome over the past two thousand years. Treatment and prevention involve the use of acupuncture and herbs along with nutritional and lifestyle counseling.

Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine are based on the theory that life energy, called “Qi” (pronounced “chee”), flows through channels or meridians in the body. When a person is under mental, emotional, or physical stress, the energy, which normally flows freely through the body, begins to stagnate.
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healingarts | April 27, 2005 |

Keith Zang , from Touching The Light

Reiki is a form of energetic hands-on healing that originated in Japan. Most people know and understand Reiki as an “in-person” form of treatment, treating everything from stress to helping to speed healing after surgery. It is increasingly being utilized in hospitals throughout the world and Reiki volunteer programs are becoming recognized as viable accompaniment programs with traditional western therapies. But what many people don’t realize or have much faith in is the ability of Reiki practitioners to send Reiki energy to anyone, anywhere in the world and get great results doing so.
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healingarts | April 25, 2005 |

Cristin Snyder | ofspirit.com

All beings require equality. There must be a balance between the spiritual, emotional, and physical being. When the balance is off, we are off. We feel the repercussions through physical pain, discomfort, anxiety, anger, and depression. When we go to the doctor to seek pills for physical ailments, typically we are focusing treatment on the symptoms and not the underlying problem.

Again, I am not discouraging anyone from going to the doctor, however most doctors would agree that a well-balanced person tends to be a healthier person. Nothing that improves the outlook and helps reduce stress can hurt you. There are various natural methods that can be used by anyone in even the busiest lifestyles, to help restore a sense of balance. I will be touching on the basics of light meditation, visualization, affirmations, and journaling.
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healingarts | April 24, 2005 |

Michael Sky, from Breathing: Expanding Your Power and Energy

Feelings derive from energy, and our capacity for feeling develops as a function of energy flow. Our breathing provides a primary source of energy, and our manner of breathing influences the flow of energies.

This interrelationship between breath, energy, and feelings proves fundamental to the way in which we experience ourselves and to our powers of creation. Learning to unleash the full creative force of our feelings through breathing turns the key to a healthy and fulfilling life. Unfortunately, we typically learn to do precisely the opposite.

Remember how you breathe when very sad but trying hard not to cry. You will constrict your breathing, making it very shallow and preventing movement in your upper chest especially. You will also attempt to hold your lips tightly together, cutting off the flow of air along with any expression of sadness, though others may be able to detect a quivering in your chin.

Now remember how you breathe when trying hard not to get angry at someone you love. Again, a tightly controlled and contracted breath; usually along with a knot of tension in the solar plexus, tight bands of contracted muscle along the shoulders and neck, a clenched jaw, and a stiffened brow. Tense yourself in this way when feeling good, and then try to breathe. You cannot even approximate a good, free flow of breath once you have become so contracted.

Now remember how you breathe when trying hard not to laugh at an inappropriate moment. Yet more tightened muscles and stifled breath. And remember sitting through a tension-packed horror film. Or anticipating bad news at the doctor’s office. Or sitting in a dentist’s chair. Or late, and stuck in rush hour traffic. Or watching the final moments of a nail-biting sporting event. Or attempting to suppress sexual excitement.
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healingarts | April 21, 2005 |

BBC News

A team from University College London said happiness leads to lower levels of stress-inducing chemicals.

They found that even when happier people experienced stress, they had low levels of a chemical which increases the risk of heart disease.

The research is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It showed that those who were happy less often had higher levels of a bloodstream chemical called plasma fibrinogen, which shows if there is inflammation present.

It is an indicator of how great a risk a person has of developing heart disease in the future.
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healingarts | April 19, 2005 |

Michael Sky, from The Power of Emotion: Using Your Emotional Energy to Transform Your Life

Emotional suppression sometimes serves a useful, even essential, purpose. When suffering a severe traumatic injury, the body automatically passes into the physiological state of shock, blocking all feeling and sensation, and numbing consciousness, so that the injured person can better begin recovery. Similarly, when children experience physical, emotional or sexual abuse, they commonly report feeling numb, losing consciousness, and sometimes even leaving their bodies (they may remember objectively observing the event from above). In such cases, emotional suppression serves as a mercy, a blessing, and a necessary first step in the healing process.

Even during lesser travails, suppression often seems the best we can do. As children learn early on, no matter how much a parent (or boss, policeman, or other authority figure) may violate you, it rarely helps to vent your rage, and indeed, expressing anger-energy typically only makes matters worse. Grief-stricken as you may feel, crying does not always help—especially when around other people who will not abide tears, or when the time and energy given to crying might interfere with something else that needs to get done. The same with fear: showing one’s fear to others can undermine one’s ability to lead and/or interfere with the need for immediate action. Feeling sexual arousal at the wrong time or place or around the wrong person offers no other choice than to suppress it now. Likewise, needing to laugh during a funeral. (more…)

healingarts | April 9, 2005 |

Harriet Lerner, from The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You’re Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate

The thread that unites my work both as an author and as a psychotherapist is my desire to help people speak wisely and well, sometimes about the most difficult subjects. This includes asking questions, getting a point across, clarifying desires, beliefs, values, and limits. How such communication goes determines whether we want to come home or stay away at the end of the day.

This is no simple matter, as glib terms like communication skills or assertiveness training imply. Assertiveness is considered a good idea — if not a cultural ideal. But despite decades of assertiveness training and lots of good advice about communicating with clarity, timing, and tact, we may do our best to speak but still feel unheard. We may find that we cannot affect our husband or wife or partner, that fights go nowhere, that conflict brings only pain rather than an opportunity for two people to learn more about each other. We may have the same dilemma with our mother, sister or uncle, or close friend. (more…)

healingarts | April 1, 2005 |

Kaethe Weingarten | Common Shock: Witnessing Violence Every Day, How We Are Harmed, How We Can Heal

The other day I took my friend’s daughter, age seven, to the park. While I was pushing her on the swing, a father smacked his small son in the face. Turning away from this man and little boy, I saw my young friend, Anna, riveted with attention to the same scene.

Within a few pushes Anna began to kick her feet to slow herself down, and soon she was able to reach her feet to the ground, where she scuffed her shoes, the better to stop. Turning her head toward me, she said matter-of-factly, “I don’t want to stay here anymore. Can we go home?”

Had I been bending down to remove a leaf off my leg, had I been chatting with the woman pushing her daughter on the swing next to ours, had I even been yawning, eyes temporarily closed, I might easily have missed what Anna saw. The little boy had not made one peep, so no sound from him would have returned my gaze to the sandbox where he was playing.
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healingarts | March 26, 2005 |

Master Stephen Co & Eric B. Robins, M.D. with John Merryman | Your Hands Can Heal You

In the often irreverent language of the operating room, James was “circling the drain.” Quite simply, he was going to die. A 41-year-old man who had been hospitalized for gall bladder surgery in the Los Angeles medical center where I work, James had developed a host of serious postoperative complications: yeast sepsis (a blood infection fatal 70 percent of the time) a blood clot in the lung (fatal nearly 60 percent of the time) and multiple enterocutaneous fistulae (openings in his abdominal wall through which intestinal fluid was leaking). In addition, he had daily fever spikes of up to 104 degrees, constant nausea, and vomiting.

Three months earlier I had taken a class called “Introduction to Pranic Healing,” an energy medicine system that teaches people to manipulate the body’s prana, or vital force, to facilitate healing. I remembered vividly our instructor’s confidence in the system. Master pranic Healer Stephen Co, one of the world’s top practitioners, frequently urged us to “do the practice and look for the result; don’t take my word for it that it works.” (more…)

healingarts | March 20, 2005 |