It was only after a long-distance drive, that I experienced the effectiveness of “energy medicine.”  In the past, I had to take some rest after driving continuously for eight hours, this time it was different.  I was able to drive for 25 hours non-stop without having to change driver.  At the end of the journey, there was still a warm comfortable feeling along my spine.  Since I had been tracing the meridian for a while, out of habit every time I stopped to top up petrol, I would trace the meridian once.  This experience aroused my curiosity about “energy medicine” and started me on an unexpected journey.

Energy Never Requires Precision, Only Science Does.

What does energy mean? Energy medicine views a person as a body of energy.  According to Donna, in energy pathway (meridian network), there are fixed paths (such as the “twelve meridian”), there are some that are hidden on certain parts, and may not necessarily follow specific paths when they move (for instance, the energy of strange flow (eight energy system)). The twelve meridians have the five rhythms movement of strengthening and sedating flows, self adjustments and control.  Other important rhythms, such as midnight-noon ebb-flow, all are explicitly explained in the book.  What does it mean by Medicine? Energy medicine believes that the way the body is designed allows for self healing.  The self healing process is accelerated through “appropriate communication with the body energy,”   for instance, massaging certain trigger points.  In general, energy medicine is similar to treatments in that it helps speed up self-healing.

I have gradually found that the impact on the application of energy medicine in daily health maintenance, amazingly effective.  Let’s share a few practical experiences. For example - once, someone had a sudden backache. The pain spread from the spine to the entire back and then, the entire body including the front of the body.  The pain was so acute that the person could no longer tell where the pain came from and was unable to stand straight but only laid down on bed, moaning.  Even in lying, one could not lie flat but had to keep finding new angles and positions that was more comfortable.  It was hard to describe the conditions clearly under such great pain.

So let’s start with energy testing, to trace the source of this imbalance.  Since the patient had to keep lying, I had to treat her like an infant or someone unconscious and did the surrogate energy testing (Energy Medicine, pg39).  I held her hand, and through the hand, I let her energy flow temporarily to my body, and then, test the energy through my body.  I used the tensor fascia lata muscle (Energy Medicine, pg31) forenergy testing.  Although it may not be highly accurate, the advantage was that I could do it alone without assistance.  I tried to identify the meridian that went out of balance by following the order of “energy testing the five rhythms” (Energy Medicine, pg183); I found the water meridian (kidney or bladder meridian) to be out of balance.

The imbalance of meridians may be due to too much or not enough energy.  The symptoms of pain normally indicate that there is too much energy while poor functions indicate the lack.  Excess energy has to be released.  I first tried the kidney meridian by using the sedating points (Energy Medicine, pg 99).   Since it was possible that the imbalance came from the bladder meridian and not the kidney meridian, I observed the patient’s reactions attentively.  If there were no reactions (given the very gentle nature of energy medicine, it allows for the high tolerance of mistakes), the bladder meridian would be checked after the energy for the kidney meridian had been replenished.  It turned out that this patient reacted positively to the kidney meridian pacifying treatment, and the pain was lessened immediately.

After that incident, I found out that Donna Eden once treated her daughter’s pain (Energy Medicine, pg 256) around her ovaries; kidney meridian guards the ovaries, and these two cases were very similar. After the above case, I met someone who had menstrual discomfort on another occasion. Being lazy, I skipped energy testing and applied directly the sedating pressure point for kidney meridian. Obviously, her discomfort eased immediately.

Another example was someone with a headache problem. After questioning, I found that it was a symptom of more than 30 years.  Although it was better in recent years, the pain returned more frequently in recent days.  The dull ache or “tightness” was spread around the rear brain and neck.  It looked like the path of the gall meridian, the pain usually occur in times of stress.

After energy testing, I discovered that the gall meridian was out of balance and the energy was flowing backwards. Fortunately, the energy field was in the cross over condition of a healthy person.  The condition of the backward meridian flow must first be remedied.  Weak foundation gives rise to sicknesses, and wherever there is weakness, sickness abound.   When the meridians flow backward, massage or thump the last acupoints (K27) of the kidney meridian (Energy Medicine, pg 203). So I suggested that he thump the K27 trigger point frequently that night.  I demonstrated and explained clearly that thumping is to remedy the backward meridian flow.  I thought that when the meridians stop flowing backward in the next morning, then I would work on the gall bladder meridian experientially.

This friend was serious in thumping his own K27.  The next morning, the headache was gone.  This friend seemed quite happy with the thumping and the cessation of the headache.  After energy testing, it was ascertained that the meridian was no longer moving backwards.  With the thumping and headache gone, I did not proceed to test the gall bladder meridian as there would be no comparison.  So I decided to wait for a few days and see if the headache would return.  He continued with thumping in the following days, the meridian did not move backwards and the headache did not return.

This friend smiled pleasantly and was very satisfied with the thumping, and freedom from headache.  He even demonstrated happily to me on how he did his thumping of the K27. To my great surprise, he was completely off (specifically, he thumped on the areas around the acupoints, not exactly on the points)!

This last case is mentioned to emphasize one important characteristic of energy medicine.  The book does not give elaborate descriptions on meridian network, different acupoints or exact acupoints.  Actually this is the marvel of energy medicine. “Energy never requires precision, only science does.”  The requirement for precision comes from the left brain thinking, whereas the emphasis of energy medicine is on energy, and it is the natural presentation of the right brain.  To top that, our intention has an even stronger healing power.  This does not mean that massaging randomly is just as effective!  “Massage randomly” shows that our main thinking is still on the word “massage” (whether we massage correctly, incorrectly or blindly).  It is better to focus on the word “energy” instead. Likewise, it is better to focus on the intention of thumping the acupoints rather than on the location of the acupoints. When thumping, concentrate on the thoughts that the meridians are flowing properly now, rather than wondering if the thumping is on the exact spots, and the outcome would still be as effective.

Energy Medicine teaches various methods of communicating with the body energy.  They are all very simple and easy to learn, although from the first glance there may seem to be a wide variety of them.  After some time of practice, it will become as natural as primary school students doing morning exercise.  Although there are some differences between Energy Medicine’s discussions on triple warmer versus eight energy system and the conventional descriptions, the explanations in the book are quite interesting and unique.  The book shares successful cases in enhancing the immune system and in working with the derivation of various difficult illnesses such as multiple sclerosis (Energy Medicine, pg199).  Living in this era, if one wish to harmonize and appropriately enhance the immune system, then don’t miss this good book - Energy Medicine!

Original Chinese article is published in February 2008 issue of Lapis magazine