We are Energy.
In recent decades we have viewed our bodies as purely a biochemical reaction waiting to interact with some form of medicine or vitamin supplement to cure what is ailing us. I wish it were so easy. But we all know, deep down, that our bodies are intelligent and are way more complicated than that. We are a sum of all of our parts; physical, emotional, sexual, spiritual and energetic. So when we are out of balance or depriving one or more parts that make the whole; the whole suffers then through the weakest link. Even so, if someone tells me of their headaches or body aches, my first thought is usually: “what did you eat?”; “what have you changed recently?”. I know life is not that simple and frankly, neither are we. Maybe it’s time to broaden that thought process to include more of the whole picture.
It has been said many times in my life that all disease starts in the mouth. Either from what we ate that was nutritionally poor or toxic or perhaps an infection travelling through the gum line into the bloodstream or a bacterial / fungal overgrowth that travelled to your lungs or intestines. When this happens over and over; it can become a cumulative or a chronic dis-ease. We have talked about teeth and bacteria in “Dental Plaque is Healthy....Until it is Not” and we also talked about how to prevent disease in ”You are (Healthy or Not Because of)What you eat". So I will just touch on your gut being your first line of defense just briefly here because I am starting to think that the first line of defense against disease starts further away from you than in your own person. More on that in the next paragraph. Every orifice of our body has some form of defense to keep us from getting invaded by pathogens or sick with all that is floating around. Just to name a few areas and their unique defenses:
1. From our lungs (a detox pathway) that has it's own unique microbiome and can secrete a mucus substance to entrap bacteria and foreign particles to be expelled by cough or sneeze or merely a blown nose;
2. The pores of our skin are a certain acidity to keep the skin bacteria (or its biome) in a happy and healthy population; it is also one of five detox mechanisms in the body. Not only can it absorbs 60% of what touches the skin but it can sweat out by-products of the body (think metabolic waste and toxins). Do you ever notice the change in smells in your armpits with the different foods you eat or clothing you wear (cotton versus polyester)? Me neither. Ha! Just kidding. Polyester, made from plastic or a petroleum- based product.... Let's just say that I can't wear that to yoga class....or in public. It's a community service to wear cotton!
3. From mouth to anus is a closed system keeping large particles and unwanted substances out of the body. Allowing foodstuffs to pass through the body without ever being in the body! How genius is that? We just take the nutrients that we need through the intestinal wall into the body (in an optimal individual); it is also part of the liver bile duct detox; helping with excretion of toxins and substances no longer needed. Other detox pathways are the kidneys, lymphatic system and the glymphatic system (which detoxifies the brain). I marvel at the intricacies that make us us. When you think of it, how did we come to be so efficient?! When we by pass these systems of safety in our bodies by taking medicine or therapies intramuscularly, subcutaneously or by IV, you bypass all of our built in safety measures making it far more difficult to deal with the foreign substances that should have been broken down by stomach acid or what ever orifice defense that these foreign substances came to. Something to ponder. I will just leave that there.
Shields UP!
Our first line of defense, I feel, is our own energy field, our auric field. Donna Eden has been a luminary in the field (pun intended) for …well… since childhood, decades ago. According to Donna, we have 9 energy systems in our body. She should know, she sees them! You may already know some, like the aura (biofield) and meridians and maybe the 7 main chakras (from root to crown but there are many more). To me, this biofield is where you get extraneous information from. It is a powerful communication tool. It is how you know someone has bad intentions before even talking to them. It is that sick feeling in your gut...you can just feel it when something is off. If healthy and strong, then your biofield can filter what information you put out there as well.
“When your aura is healthy and balanced, it attracts nourishing energies to you; when it is not, you are vulnerable to energies that are harmful to you, coming from others and the environment, and you may not be receiving energies you need.” Donna Eden.
Some systems have energy crossing over in figure 8 patterns and some are disks of energy on certain points and some like the aura surround your body to various degrees. When you are sick then your energy is low and possibly stuck in certain spots or not moving at all. This is where disease can happen; in the place of stuck energy. When you are in the energy of love then your field is expanded as opposed to being in a state of fear or anger(which is a lower vibrational state). Typically our auric field expands to about 3-4 feet from our heart center. But extraordinary people have auric fields that can stretch for miles! I imagine that an extraordinary person would be someone like the HH Dalai Lama, Ghandi, Jesus, Buddha…If you want to learn more of all 9 of these energy systems that are yours, then check out this page https://www.edenmethodvictoria.com/in-person-sessions9 These 9 systems are explained here by on of Donna Eden’s graduate; she does a beautiful job.
Oh come on Michelle, now you are getting all woowoo on us.
Well, I understand that, it is hard to grasp a concept that we can’t see, touch, taste or feel. How do we quantify it? I encourage you to be extra-open minded today. We can feel energy but sometimes are unaware of it. Think of when you were in a compromising situation, did you not have a gut feeling? Perhaps felt sick to your stomach? Think of words that we use; the N word, the C word the pick-a-letter word; it is just a word until we put energy behind it and give that word power. I was taught from Navajo culture that if you think something is bad or, let’s say, perverted then you must have bad or perverted thoughts to think that; an innocent mind would not view words in a bad light because they don’t think that way. That certainly gave me pause. Come to think of it, when I was growing up, the B word was rarely used and when it was… oh boy, that was really bad. Now that word is common and meant to express kinship; I never thought that would happen! All this to say that we have power.
“Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.” -Mahatma Ghandi
Sometimes the energy we carry around with us isn’t even ours. Before the age of 7, most kids are completely open, energywise, they pick up all transmissions coming to them. Their brains, however, are not developed enough to decipher what is theirs and what belongs to others. We may be carrying around this energy (from our childhood) still today. Some of our belief system isn’t even ours; it is absorbed from the people that we grew up with! Especially before the age of 5.
It is time to clean house!
One of the most efficient tools for clearing this energy, these beliefs and even some trauma, could be the use of EFT; emotional freedom technique, simply referred to as tapping. In eastern medicine, your emotions are tied to specific organs and different meridians in the body. Most of us intuitively know this; when we feel anxious, we feel it in our stomachs and people who are angry all of the time tend to have heart or liver problems (the energy gets stuck there). BTW the pinky finger is the end of the heart meridian. In case you wanted to know.
Back in the 70’s Roger Callahan was the original user to develop Thought Field Therapy. He developed this technique along with the use of muscle testing, kinesiology and meridians and eye movements.http://www.rogercallahan.com/tapping-therapy.php. His first patient that he used these principles on was deathly afraid of water. All of the different modalities that he had applied so far had not made any difference in the amount of fear that she expressed; he decided to try, with her consent, this meridian tapping and within one session, she had calmed down; even when close to a pool. The improvement was astounding. This technique has developed over the years and there are many places where you can find tapping apps and instagroups and online EFT therapies. They are beneficial and have success and even gained some ground with helping vets with PTSD. There are many psychotherapists who use these techniques now too. There is a whole field of Energy Psychology. I marvel that we are still learning so much about ourselves and improving science constantly.
Things to note about tapping:
There are a series of eye movements that many people have dropped out of tapping currently. We know that the brains has neuropaths and we know that if you move your eyes around or close and open your eyes or perform different eye movements then different parts of your brain light up.
The eye movements break up the trauma; when you move the eye you get a shock to the brain. So the brain froze in time, so to speak and it’s now unfreezing.
If you tap in a group session for an hour, your cortisol levels (a stress hormone) drop by 43%. If you tap on your own, the cortisol levels drop only half that much.
It is always best to work with someone that has healed from what you are working on. Otherwise, you are working the same vibration as the problem. Level up. Work with someone that is ahead of you. If you surpass them, find someone else, or this modality may stop working.
"The format for tapping is to work to find what is the energy in the current event that is triggering with the negative trauma - bring it down- then reprogram yourself. Clearing other people's energy, your own stuck energy and negative thoughts; then creating space for you.
What you resist, persists and it will get louder; and if you continue to ignore it, it will take you to your knees- it is arrogance to think that you rule the planet; that you can ignore it.
The energy that holds trauma in place: unworthiness, doubt, jealousy, betrayal, anger, rage, violence- you have the power to keep them or to transmute them. Once they are transmuted, then you remember who you are.
In doing so, you become more powerful on the planet because you dealt with the original trauma. Dealing with trauma now is going into action instead of reacting to the situation. People will hear you in a different way. There will be a shift. Bringing you here- so that you can be the light that you were brought here to be" -Mary Sise LWSC, https://marysise.com Soul Weaving, Magdalena Healing.
How do you know that you have stuck energy?
How it shows up for people is that you say that you want to do something but something is stopping you. Like you have a foot on the gas and a foot on the brake. You know that you are being called to do something but you can’t get all of you on board. That’s when you know that you have an aspect of yourself that’s not on the same page.
Even if there is no stuck energy, there is no harm in trying tapping or any other energy moving method mentioned here today. So try them and see if these movements and practices feel right for you.
Emotions are Energy
If you doubt the power of our emotions, check out work by Dr Emoto. Dr. Masaru Emoto, the Japanese scientist who revolutionized the idea that our thoughts and intentions impact the physical realm. For over 20 years, he studied the scientific evidence of how the molecular structure in water transforms when it is exposed to human words, thoughts, sounds and intentions. How is that for a mind bender? I urge you to check out his work and see all of the pictures and results of his work. Even the energy behind your tears create different crystalline shapes.
His images and extraordinary life work are documented in the New York Times Bestseller, "The Hidden Messages in Water". In his book, Dr. Emoto demonstrates how water exposed to loving, benevolent, and compassionate human intention results in aesthetically pleasing physical molecular formations in the water while water exposed to fearful and discordant human intentions results in disconnected, disfigured, and “unpleasant” physical molecular formations. He did this through Magnetic Resonance Analysis technology and high-speed photographs. He also noted the different structure of tears of joy versus tears of sadness. Dr. Masuru Emoto was a pioneer in the study of water. His work demonstrated that water is shaped by environment, thoughts and emotions.
"With great power comes great responsibility" -William Lamb, Voltaire, Spiderman
Dr. Masaru Emoto put Water as a Living Consciousness on the map for the scientific world. He showed us how water is an energy capable of more than we ever imagined. The power human thoughts, sounds and intentions has to strengthen and disempower is one of the greatest discoveries of our time. It is a power that we should not take lightly.
Another tool one can use for self healing, or better yet, for others to practice on you is Reiki. https://www.reiki.org/faqs/what-reiki reiki explained. I never really felt sensitive to energies so it is hard for me to believe but my experience as a skeptic was from my friend who gifted me with a reiki session. I sat in a closed off room with no heat on, in the winter(yeah, it was cold). My eyes were closed. I could hear her moving her hands roughly four inches above my body; never touching. At first, it was unremarkable and then my upper body had a rush of heat like a hot flash or turning red from embarrassment. I am cold blooded so I knew this wasn’t coming from me! She was moving my energy! Sometimes she gets images or memories popping in her head from her clients. Or she would feel cold spots where the energy is stuck and if she can not move that energy then there is a developing problem and medical attention should be sought. For instance, this one woman had a cold spot in her lower belly and once she went to the doctor (as recommended by my friend) and ran some tests, they had found.... I don't remember what but it was something that required medical attention like fibroid cysts or kidney stones something that she was not aware that she had. Not that these energy medicines should ever replace conventional medicine but they can be a nice compliment. They can have a place at the table and both eastern and western medicine can be used simultaneously.
Similarly to moving energy with the electromagnetic use of hands (Reiki); Tuning forks can also be used with great success to alleviate pain and some symptoms of disease. https://electrichealth.com/store/ tuning forks. https://electrichealth.com. Eileen Day McKusick does just that using tuning forks she finds the place where the resonance of the tuning fork is either in harmony with your energy or it is in discord. Then holding the tuning fork at that stuck energy location, the body resonance and the tuning fork resonance bounce off of each other. Eventually the body, intuitively, will readjust to become, once again, in balance. It may take several sessions but it is amazing to hear the testimonials.
There are movements that you can do to help yourself like Tai Chi or Chi Gong: https://www.opencenter.org/daisy-lee/ chi gong, Check Hay House or get on Daisy Lee's newsletter for free or live events. Daily Lee reconnecting earth and sky. Where your movements rearrange the energy around you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9e4ybu3WSM
Another movement modality is energy medicine. Donna Eden is jubilant and joyful to the core and I enjoy her teachings. She has been seeing energy since a child. It is really remarkable all of the diseases that she had and how she healed herself. Her doctors tried everything until they had nothing left to offer. It is from her that I learned of the 9 energy systems of the body. Check her out on you tube for her daily routine to help keep you healthy as well. Dondi (Donna’s daughter) shows us the five elements here. This is another video of Donna Eden showing us how to help ourself with long haul: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tUaFcsZiSk
One can use acupuncture and massage to manipulate and move energy as well. I do believe that acupuncture is especially helpful for neurological symptoms. Case in point, my acupuncturist was only 27 when she had a full left body paralysis due to a stroke. She had that much stress at work. She went to a church where acupuncture was a service and had treatments 3-5 times per day for 3 months and she is now completely functional. This is an anecdotal case of one and the results are remarkable and unusual. Since we are all different, we would all have different outcomes. Not all practitioners are as skilled so it is worth doing your research and asking lots of questions to find the right acupuncturist for you. I do find that the first hand experiences of others helps to ascertain if this is a good decision for me. Word of mouth is the best way to find a professional massage therapist as well. Let's not discount the benefits of a good chiropractor either. Should one have a subluxation, wouldn't that be a suboptimal position and thus things wouldn't flow properly in the body properly? Go get adjusted then go do yoga. Drink some water too while you are at it. Your body will thank you. :)
Michelle, you have gone esoteric on us! Yeah, just a little. But maybe one of these things speak to you. Be curious and explore, I dare you. I often think of this study where these people prayed over certain patients in the hospital. The patients had no clue that they were involved in a study. The prayer givers never met those in hospital; They just had a name and an intention. No religious background was explored on any of the patients. The ones they were prayed for, healed at a greater rate than the ones who weren’t prayed for. The patients were none the wiser. They didn’t have to believe. But the power of prayer; the power of intention is palpable. You don’t have to believe in the practices you choose; I am sure that it would help if you did but just check in with your body before and check in again after a week you try something new and see if there is a positive shift for you. No matter what it is you would like to try, check in with the body.
We intuitively gravitate towards the things that are good for us. Think of the yoga practice that you do here with us. Do you feel better after class? Do you keep coming back for more? If yes, then it serves you well. Or when you walk barefoot on the beach or in the grass. How does that make you feel? It is grounding. What about walking through the forest and smelling the earthiness. That is forest bathing and it adjust your energy to one that you evolved with; the earth. We spend so much time in offices or in shoes, on cement that we are removed from our magnetic field. We should ground every day. Other tool we can use is singing / humming, sound healing, drum circles, electronic devices or apps: binaural beats(using certain brain waves frequencies), head space, muse, or sensate (to help you calm and learn how to get yourself into a calming brain state) and let’s not forget actual meditations. If you have trouble sitting still, try a moving meditation; maybe that is yoga for you or a slow and mindful walk after dinner. If you want to try meditation there are plenty of choices out there. Some use mantras, or breath technique. It is important to note that meditation does not stop thoughts from happening; you just learn to not dwell on those thoughts. You learn over time not to be distracted by them. Just notice a thought like a leaf in the river and watch it continue on its journey.
I love this photo project on meditation by Peter Seidler called "Contemplatives" . There was a 30 day meditation retreat. Participants had their photos taken before and after the 30 days and their faces were noticeably changed! Their eyes had a softness and had a light to them after the thirty days. Just from their photo, you could tell that they were now markedly calm people. You could see the zen! It was remarkable and encouraging to see the difference.
A meditation challenge that I like to do is through Deepak Chopra. A few times a year he puts out these 21 day meditation challenges and guides you through twenty minutes of experience. It certainly puts you in the right frame of mind. Check his website for the next available one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Eq1tetWUeM. Here is one of Chopra's three minute meditation from his app: https://www.chopra.com/app. Sometimes James van Praagh puts out meditations as well.
While I sit and write this, I am listening to calming music; background music with no words. Usually if you type in OHM on youtube, you can find some 3,6, and 11 hours long that are commercial free so that you can work without distraction and hopefully stay in a place of calm. Here are my latest listens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TcvkHMc1D8, healing sounds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPB58GlXRRw flutes and rain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NJikuLgcak&t=8569s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1o6DAnmVT8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-Q60Szq5WQ this is Liquid Bloom and it does have commercial but it also has different nature sounds in the back ground. There are a few good songs to listen to here.
In a nutshell, we talked about our energy systems and different ways that we can move our own energy to come to a more balanced state. Out of all of the things that I have not mentioned, (and I am sure that I am missing alot of content here), one of the most powerful "medicines" that you can do for yourself and for others is: the sharing of a consensual hug. Many of us have been left alone with our own thoughts for too long and that is taxing on the brain, body & soul. If our energy from the heart center only goes out three feet on a good mood day then how can we fortify our energy and communicate with others' energy when we stay apart? I just read a story of an elder woman at the doctor's office. She was terrified of all that is going on, as we all are. She is a caregiver for her husband and have been shut in for over a year. The doctor gave her a hug and she cried because that is the only hug she received all year! This story is touching. I may have to don a costume give out free hugs. If you are local and in need of a hug, I am here. If you live further away, let's talk. Together, we can all benefit from support and nurturing.
Stay tuned next newsletter as I interview the expert at EMF Trusted Pro. We will discuss 5G, dirty electricity, EMFs, radio frequencies and how they affect your natural energy and your body. This is not to be missed. Eileen Robottom is stellar and she will have some great mitigation solutions for us all. So buckle up, you are in for a ride!
If you have any questions that you want me to ask, just shoot me an email. Don't be shy.
GratitudeyogawithMichelle@gmail.com
Namaste,
Michelle
Disclaimer: The information above is never intended to substitute as medical advice. If you need medical advice or medical care then go see a medical professional or a functional medicine doctor. I am a yoga instructor with a passion to learn. I like to share my findings. If this helps you jump start your rabbit hole search then I am glad to help. If you have any comments or input regarding the newsletter or questions regarding yoga or if you would like a personal yogic consult then email me. I am glad to help.