Keep your body harmoniously happy...
Hey! For those of you who don’t know yet, the old and decrepit looking Marocchi’s building has been beautifully restored by one of Cumberland’s carpenters, Tim Patterson, and his helpers. Great job you guys!
The building now hosts Harmonic Arts, a herbal shop which carries the best selection of organic and wild harvested herbs in the whole valley, and possibly the whole of Canada. Managed by Yarrow Willard and Angela, the store front is meant to enhance the company’s presence in Cumberland since it is mostly a wholesaler to various practitioners and natural food stores in North America.
I am delighted for this addition for it carries some of the important Chinese herbs as well as many ‘superfoods’ such as spirulina and chlorella, berries such as goji, golden and wolf berries, and immuno modulating and enhancing mushrooms such as reishi, shiitake, lion’s mane, and chaga.
The building now hosts Harmonic Arts, a herbal shop which carries the best selection of organic and wild harvested herbs in the whole valley, and possibly the whole of Canada. Managed by Yarrow Willard and Angela, the store front is meant to enhance the company’s presence in Cumberland since it is mostly a wholesaler to various practitioners and natural food stores in North America.
I am delighted for this addition for it carries some of the important Chinese herbs as well as many ‘superfoods’ such as spirulina and chlorella, berries such as goji, golden and wolf berries, and immuno modulating and enhancing mushrooms such as reishi, shiitake, lion’s mane, and chaga.
Succesful Anger Management 101
Over the years, I have been puzzled by the idea of anger management as has been put out in popular culture. Interestingly, although somewhat public in recent years, road rage has not been heard of late. Maybe something in the management of anger is working after all.
Even though anger is considered a true emotion, at least in Chinese medicine, it is also often a cover up for at least one other emotion which has not had the opportunity to free flow. And, by the way, mild annoyances and resentment are usually an attempt at politeness while being completely pissed off, even infuriated, underneath.
Here’s a little more theory before suggestions for remedy. A useful way to look at emotions is this: E-motion, i.e. energy in motion, meaning, emotions are supposed to be a form of energy that flows freely. When that does not happen, the blocked energy, just like an ice jam on a river, causes a commotion – a swelling of energy upstream which is felt as anything from a mild annoyance to deep resentment and eventually something like road rage, accompanied by a lack of energy flow downstream which leads to all kinds of issues in the tissues like
tiredness,
feelings of stagnation in muscles,
digestive difficulties,
mild menstrual cramps, and/or
slight headaches
at the beginning, and, as the energy accumulates upstream by resisting its free flow, it builds up to
depression,
dejectedness,
migraine headaches,
severe menstrual cramps and other more serious menstrual irregularities,
and, as the stagnantion persists and even more energy is diverted to resist the free flow, this leads to even more incapacitating illnesses and syndromes such as
chronic fatigue syndrome,
fibromyalgia,
severe migraines,
incapacitating menstrual episodes,
rheumatoid arthritis,
auto-immune conditions, and several others.
Now, if all this seems to be improbable, please just use this information as a seed planted in your garden of curiosity. When at acupuncture school, I kinda dismissed it too. After all, how could mere emotions be responsible for so much. I’m hoping that the metaphor of the ice jam is at all helpful in this matter. And, after 12 years in practice, I’m left with no other choice but to consider the above as closer to the truth as anything Western medicine has to offer.
And, to all the women out there who hoped for more sensitive guys who are able to see beyond sport stats and the ‘she’ in cars, this is the can of worms that you opened. And thanks, by the way, I would not want it any other way. I feel more excited about what I’m discovering than ever before. And it still like all you women, of course, who sent me in this direction.
So, what to do about all this. Well, first, allowing oneself to be curious by feeling into the body’s issues is a good place to start. That can be facilitated by allowing yourself to relax into the mild discomforts of your body so that the energy can find its way through the blockage. If that does not bring a resolution like the slow thawing of the ice jam in the Spring sun, one can help it with the judicious use of Xiao Yao Wan, aka the ‘Free and Easy Wanderer’, aka the ‘Ice Jam Melting Pellets’. Email me if you need more info about this.
If further assistance is needed, say if you successfully identify the seed issue that causes the blockage but you are still unable to move through, then there are ways to address this. A great self-help way to achieve that is to find an old punching bag, a solid baseball bat, in a room where no one can hear you or won’t care if they do, and go at the bag with all the fury that shows up. Allowing the anger and/or rage that is there to be expressed will eventually bring insight into the underlying emotions. As long as the anger is not physically directed at anyone, then it is perfectly safe to experience it.
The analogy I like to use to look at anger is to compare it to a bomb. People who have to diffuse bombs don’t waste time trying to analyse who put the bomb there in the first place. There are two safe ways to deal with this bomb – if safe to do so, remove the bomb from its location and explode it elsewhere, otherwise protect the surroundings from the explosion and explode the bomb anyway. Bomb managed. Then look for the instigator.
There are also several methods that can help you:
Emotional Freedom Technique,
Body Talk,
Rebirthing, and
Transformational Acupuncture
are but a few ways that I know of. The latter is the form of acupuncture I am most successful at.
So, please consider allowing your bomb of anger to explode in a safe manner, i.e. don’t direct it at anyone, either by yourself or with the help of a practitioner, and this will open the door for insights into the deeper realms of your Self. And that is Successful Anger Management 101.
Even though anger is considered a true emotion, at least in Chinese medicine, it is also often a cover up for at least one other emotion which has not had the opportunity to free flow. And, by the way, mild annoyances and resentment are usually an attempt at politeness while being completely pissed off, even infuriated, underneath.
Here’s a little more theory before suggestions for remedy. A useful way to look at emotions is this: E-motion, i.e. energy in motion, meaning, emotions are supposed to be a form of energy that flows freely. When that does not happen, the blocked energy, just like an ice jam on a river, causes a commotion – a swelling of energy upstream which is felt as anything from a mild annoyance to deep resentment and eventually something like road rage, accompanied by a lack of energy flow downstream which leads to all kinds of issues in the tissues like
tiredness,
feelings of stagnation in muscles,
digestive difficulties,
mild menstrual cramps, and/or
slight headaches
at the beginning, and, as the energy accumulates upstream by resisting its free flow, it builds up to
depression,
dejectedness,
migraine headaches,
severe menstrual cramps and other more serious menstrual irregularities,
and, as the stagnantion persists and even more energy is diverted to resist the free flow, this leads to even more incapacitating illnesses and syndromes such as
chronic fatigue syndrome,
fibromyalgia,
severe migraines,
incapacitating menstrual episodes,
rheumatoid arthritis,
auto-immune conditions, and several others.
Now, if all this seems to be improbable, please just use this information as a seed planted in your garden of curiosity. When at acupuncture school, I kinda dismissed it too. After all, how could mere emotions be responsible for so much. I’m hoping that the metaphor of the ice jam is at all helpful in this matter. And, after 12 years in practice, I’m left with no other choice but to consider the above as closer to the truth as anything Western medicine has to offer.
And, to all the women out there who hoped for more sensitive guys who are able to see beyond sport stats and the ‘she’ in cars, this is the can of worms that you opened. And thanks, by the way, I would not want it any other way. I feel more excited about what I’m discovering than ever before. And it still like all you women, of course, who sent me in this direction.
So, what to do about all this. Well, first, allowing oneself to be curious by feeling into the body’s issues is a good place to start. That can be facilitated by allowing yourself to relax into the mild discomforts of your body so that the energy can find its way through the blockage. If that does not bring a resolution like the slow thawing of the ice jam in the Spring sun, one can help it with the judicious use of Xiao Yao Wan, aka the ‘Free and Easy Wanderer’, aka the ‘Ice Jam Melting Pellets’. Email me if you need more info about this.
If further assistance is needed, say if you successfully identify the seed issue that causes the blockage but you are still unable to move through, then there are ways to address this. A great self-help way to achieve that is to find an old punching bag, a solid baseball bat, in a room where no one can hear you or won’t care if they do, and go at the bag with all the fury that shows up. Allowing the anger and/or rage that is there to be expressed will eventually bring insight into the underlying emotions. As long as the anger is not physically directed at anyone, then it is perfectly safe to experience it.
The analogy I like to use to look at anger is to compare it to a bomb. People who have to diffuse bombs don’t waste time trying to analyse who put the bomb there in the first place. There are two safe ways to deal with this bomb – if safe to do so, remove the bomb from its location and explode it elsewhere, otherwise protect the surroundings from the explosion and explode the bomb anyway. Bomb managed. Then look for the instigator.
There are also several methods that can help you:
Emotional Freedom Technique,
Body Talk,
Rebirthing, and
Transformational Acupuncture
are but a few ways that I know of. The latter is the form of acupuncture I am most successful at.
So, please consider allowing your bomb of anger to explode in a safe manner, i.e. don’t direct it at anyone, either by yourself or with the help of a practitioner, and this will open the door for insights into the deeper realms of your Self. And that is Successful Anger Management 101.
Body, Mind, Spirit—A Review
When I was attending acupuncture school, our instructors were proudly asserting that we were learning a holistic approach to healing, one that integrates all aspects of mind, body, and spirit. Although, this is in essence true, I have come to understand that to be truer when one’s understanding is clear on what that phrase actually means. It is indeed impossible to separate a human being into components without a negative impact , even though some individuals and some forms of medicine go to great length to achieve just that.
What follows is a summary of my exploration over the last 12 years through influential teachings from various mentors and authors, and which makes up my understanding of healing as it stands currently. Yes, with the acupuncture I practice is effective on all levels of mind, body, and spirit, but this understanding is evolving with every session, and yes it is becoming clearer and clearer to me that
“All healing is spiritual.”
Lewis Mehl-Madrona
And in order to impart some of this understanding, I’d like to review with you some of these influential teachings.
Emotional Freedom Technique (aka Energy Psychology)
“The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system.”
Gary Craig
Roger Callaghan is the pioneer in this area. A psychotherapist, he had been working for 18 months with a woman who had an intense fear of water at the time of his discovery. The best they’d achieved in that time period was to conduct their therapy sessions by the pool at his house. He had also been reading on energy flow in meridians at the time and, one day, had the intuition to tap on a point just below the woman’s eyes (2nd point on the urinary bladder meridian) and her fear vanished instantly (so the story goes), so much so that she proceeded to walk to the pool’s edge with no more concerns.
Callaghan went on to develop an intricate system which Gary Craig, an ex-engineer, learned and simplified and which led to the modern forms of energy psychology methods which include emotional freedom technique among others. Craig and others have been successful at treating many issues from simple phobias to intense manifestations of PTSD and more. Their current motto is to “Try it on everything” because there are truly no adverse side effects possible in using this method. Check out tryitoneverything.com for more info.
This technique is what first led me into the exploration of the root causes of chronic conditions of all kinds. I have witnessed, experienced, and led others to experience deep shifts in self awareness with its application.
Ki Aikido
“The purpose of our training is to be One with the Universe.”
Koichi Tohei Sensei
Tohei sensei was a true pioneer and visionary. He developed his understanding through the exploration of calmness of mind in overcoming personal strife like the emphysema of his youth and more serious life situations such as being an officer during the war with China which he escaped un-harmed and healthier than anyone else (and again, so the story goes). By using his principles of Mind Body Coordination (MBC), he also came back from war with more men in his platoon than he left with.
The true value of his teachings is in the understanding that when a human being allows the unification of mind and body, our true original state of being One with the Universe flows freely and a truly amazing condition of experiencing life emerges, one that seems almost miraculous at times. The teaching of MBC also explained a very simple series of event in everything in our lives, i.e. from the daily routine tasks in our home and work to the potentially hazardous conditions of a fight or even war, and which is summarized as follows:
Ki Sho Tenketsu
Energy - Mind - Body completes
The intrinsic message in this saying is that there is nothing that happens in the physical which has not manifested first at the level of energy. If one accepts that ‘Ki’ is just another word for ‘Spirit’, then this states that everything begins in our connection with Spirit, or lack thereof.
Michael Greenwood MD
Author of three inspiring books on chronic pain, including “Paradox and Healing” and “The Void”, Michael, a physician from Victoria BC, was trained in the conventional Western medical system before exploring Chinese medicine and acupuncture. He was one of the main therapists and also the medical director of the Victoria Pain Clinic (VPC) where he explored his understanding of the disconnection between mind and body in the manifestation of chronic pain and other chronic health issues. I completed two 10-day internships at VPC where I discovered the mysteries and subtleties of what happens to a person when one spends several years repressing E-motions related to severe trauma including physical, mental or sexual abuse, and how the Universe has a way of bringing these issues to light, sometimes in life events that are themselves very uncomfortable.
Psychology of Vision (PoV)
Founded by Chuck Spezzano PhD, PoV is the result of Chuck’s formal education in conventional psychotherapy combined with the inspired writing of Course in Miracles which allowed him to break through the impasses he’d confronted while working with war veterans suffering with PTSD. Chuck’s subsequent visionary work, which is now also enhanced by the truly divinely inspired guidance of his wife Lency, is centred on the understanding and the exploration of the meaning of “We are all one”, as first understood by the buddha, several centuries ago, and the fear and the physical and emotional pain that result from our belief in separation from Spirit, the so-called ‘Original Sin’ and our ‘Fall from Grace’, which is, by the way, in line with Tohei sensei’s understanding. Spirit, God, and Universe are here meant to represent the same Divine Being.
His other main teaching point is that we are constantly presented with opportunities to choose between
LOVE (i.e. the pure and unconditional Universal Love that shows up when Oneness with the Universe is acknowledged)
or FEAR (when disconnected from Spirit).
Gary Zukav
This is more a note in passing from a more recent reading which has come to support my previous discoveries. Zukav has written several books and, in one of them, he goes on to explain the nature of Karma. And it’s pretty simple. The karma we are most uncomfortable with, i.e. the ‘bad karma’ or life situations and experiences which are uncomfortable and/or difficult, is simply the result of the times in this or previous lifetimes when we stepped into fear and judgement as opposed to universal love. He goes on to say that to avoid such ‘bad karma’ is not to condone ‘inappropriate’ or ‘bad’ deeds but rather to have the willingness to see the suffering of the person committing such deeds and to treat him or her with as much compassion and unconditional love as one can muster.
That’s gotta be a lifetime learning opportunity.
Lewis Mehl-Madrona MD
Mehl-Madrona is a MD and psychotherapist who eventually acknowledged the importance of his native ancestry and its contribution through story telling, sweat lodges, and other shamanic traditions to true healing of so-called terminal or untreatable conditions. “Doctors don’t always know” is a common phrase of several of the elder healers of his books. The healing stories he relates border on the miraculous in our Western understanding but he sustains that such healings are a normal state of affairs when one acknowledges the importance and true healing power of the spirit world. And he’s only but one such writer.
Mikio Sankey Lac PhD
Founder of Esoteric Acupuncture (EA), Mikio Sankey channelled an acupuncture approach that uses sacred geometry to facilitate the opening of all our energy centres, i.e. our chakras and thereby set the stage for healing at all levels of mind, body, and spirit. He is so devoted to this understanding of healing that he will refer potential clients who seek physical therapy through acupuncture to other therapists. His approach is indeed better suited to those whom have a daily meditation practice and for whom there is no other way to understand the intricacy of life than by deepening connection to Spirit.
Homeopathy
I only mention this here because homeopathy was the first modality that opened me to the understanding that the body always performs to the best of its ability. This means that there is no symptom, however uncomfortable and/or painful, that is not a ‘correct’ response to a state of imbalance within a physical body. The mistake is to see the symptoms as the illness, and this is the reason why conventional Western medical interventions have such poor track records and such damning side effects. In fact, and this is kept rather silent in popular press, correct, medical intervention is the number one cause of all deaths. Drugs by themselves are number four. Add surgeries to the list and medical intervention jumps to first place. That is also why one hears complementary medicine circles that “a person survives cancer despite chemotherapy”.
I invite you to consider the above in your exploration of health, or any other such writing that strives to stretch our understanding of what it means to be human. We are indeed more than a collection of mechanical parts. And we are also more than pure ether. It’s the whole that matters. I like the following quote for the reminder it offers:
The role of the doctor is to amuse the patient while the body heals itself.
unknown author
What follows is a summary of my exploration over the last 12 years through influential teachings from various mentors and authors, and which makes up my understanding of healing as it stands currently. Yes, with the acupuncture I practice is effective on all levels of mind, body, and spirit, but this understanding is evolving with every session, and yes it is becoming clearer and clearer to me that
“All healing is spiritual.”
Lewis Mehl-Madrona
And in order to impart some of this understanding, I’d like to review with you some of these influential teachings.
Emotional Freedom Technique (aka Energy Psychology)
“The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system.”
Gary Craig
Roger Callaghan is the pioneer in this area. A psychotherapist, he had been working for 18 months with a woman who had an intense fear of water at the time of his discovery. The best they’d achieved in that time period was to conduct their therapy sessions by the pool at his house. He had also been reading on energy flow in meridians at the time and, one day, had the intuition to tap on a point just below the woman’s eyes (2nd point on the urinary bladder meridian) and her fear vanished instantly (so the story goes), so much so that she proceeded to walk to the pool’s edge with no more concerns.
Callaghan went on to develop an intricate system which Gary Craig, an ex-engineer, learned and simplified and which led to the modern forms of energy psychology methods which include emotional freedom technique among others. Craig and others have been successful at treating many issues from simple phobias to intense manifestations of PTSD and more. Their current motto is to “Try it on everything” because there are truly no adverse side effects possible in using this method. Check out tryitoneverything.com for more info.
This technique is what first led me into the exploration of the root causes of chronic conditions of all kinds. I have witnessed, experienced, and led others to experience deep shifts in self awareness with its application.
Ki Aikido
“The purpose of our training is to be One with the Universe.”
Koichi Tohei Sensei
Tohei sensei was a true pioneer and visionary. He developed his understanding through the exploration of calmness of mind in overcoming personal strife like the emphysema of his youth and more serious life situations such as being an officer during the war with China which he escaped un-harmed and healthier than anyone else (and again, so the story goes). By using his principles of Mind Body Coordination (MBC), he also came back from war with more men in his platoon than he left with.
The true value of his teachings is in the understanding that when a human being allows the unification of mind and body, our true original state of being One with the Universe flows freely and a truly amazing condition of experiencing life emerges, one that seems almost miraculous at times. The teaching of MBC also explained a very simple series of event in everything in our lives, i.e. from the daily routine tasks in our home and work to the potentially hazardous conditions of a fight or even war, and which is summarized as follows:
Ki Sho Tenketsu
Energy - Mind - Body completes
The intrinsic message in this saying is that there is nothing that happens in the physical which has not manifested first at the level of energy. If one accepts that ‘Ki’ is just another word for ‘Spirit’, then this states that everything begins in our connection with Spirit, or lack thereof.
Michael Greenwood MD
Author of three inspiring books on chronic pain, including “Paradox and Healing” and “The Void”, Michael, a physician from Victoria BC, was trained in the conventional Western medical system before exploring Chinese medicine and acupuncture. He was one of the main therapists and also the medical director of the Victoria Pain Clinic (VPC) where he explored his understanding of the disconnection between mind and body in the manifestation of chronic pain and other chronic health issues. I completed two 10-day internships at VPC where I discovered the mysteries and subtleties of what happens to a person when one spends several years repressing E-motions related to severe trauma including physical, mental or sexual abuse, and how the Universe has a way of bringing these issues to light, sometimes in life events that are themselves very uncomfortable.
Psychology of Vision (PoV)
Founded by Chuck Spezzano PhD, PoV is the result of Chuck’s formal education in conventional psychotherapy combined with the inspired writing of Course in Miracles which allowed him to break through the impasses he’d confronted while working with war veterans suffering with PTSD. Chuck’s subsequent visionary work, which is now also enhanced by the truly divinely inspired guidance of his wife Lency, is centred on the understanding and the exploration of the meaning of “We are all one”, as first understood by the buddha, several centuries ago, and the fear and the physical and emotional pain that result from our belief in separation from Spirit, the so-called ‘Original Sin’ and our ‘Fall from Grace’, which is, by the way, in line with Tohei sensei’s understanding. Spirit, God, and Universe are here meant to represent the same Divine Being.
His other main teaching point is that we are constantly presented with opportunities to choose between
LOVE (i.e. the pure and unconditional Universal Love that shows up when Oneness with the Universe is acknowledged)
or FEAR (when disconnected from Spirit).
Gary Zukav
This is more a note in passing from a more recent reading which has come to support my previous discoveries. Zukav has written several books and, in one of them, he goes on to explain the nature of Karma. And it’s pretty simple. The karma we are most uncomfortable with, i.e. the ‘bad karma’ or life situations and experiences which are uncomfortable and/or difficult, is simply the result of the times in this or previous lifetimes when we stepped into fear and judgement as opposed to universal love. He goes on to say that to avoid such ‘bad karma’ is not to condone ‘inappropriate’ or ‘bad’ deeds but rather to have the willingness to see the suffering of the person committing such deeds and to treat him or her with as much compassion and unconditional love as one can muster.
That’s gotta be a lifetime learning opportunity.
Lewis Mehl-Madrona MD
Mehl-Madrona is a MD and psychotherapist who eventually acknowledged the importance of his native ancestry and its contribution through story telling, sweat lodges, and other shamanic traditions to true healing of so-called terminal or untreatable conditions. “Doctors don’t always know” is a common phrase of several of the elder healers of his books. The healing stories he relates border on the miraculous in our Western understanding but he sustains that such healings are a normal state of affairs when one acknowledges the importance and true healing power of the spirit world. And he’s only but one such writer.
Mikio Sankey Lac PhD
Founder of Esoteric Acupuncture (EA), Mikio Sankey channelled an acupuncture approach that uses sacred geometry to facilitate the opening of all our energy centres, i.e. our chakras and thereby set the stage for healing at all levels of mind, body, and spirit. He is so devoted to this understanding of healing that he will refer potential clients who seek physical therapy through acupuncture to other therapists. His approach is indeed better suited to those whom have a daily meditation practice and for whom there is no other way to understand the intricacy of life than by deepening connection to Spirit.
Homeopathy
I only mention this here because homeopathy was the first modality that opened me to the understanding that the body always performs to the best of its ability. This means that there is no symptom, however uncomfortable and/or painful, that is not a ‘correct’ response to a state of imbalance within a physical body. The mistake is to see the symptoms as the illness, and this is the reason why conventional Western medical interventions have such poor track records and such damning side effects. In fact, and this is kept rather silent in popular press, correct, medical intervention is the number one cause of all deaths. Drugs by themselves are number four. Add surgeries to the list and medical intervention jumps to first place. That is also why one hears complementary medicine circles that “a person survives cancer despite chemotherapy”.
I invite you to consider the above in your exploration of health, or any other such writing that strives to stretch our understanding of what it means to be human. We are indeed more than a collection of mechanical parts. And we are also more than pure ether. It’s the whole that matters. I like the following quote for the reminder it offers:
The role of the doctor is to amuse the patient while the body heals itself.
unknown author
