Optimize Your Life

Episode #8: Energize Through Energy Medicine

Show Notes:

Hey there and welcome back! I’m so glad to have you here today listening to the show. It’s an indication that you care about optimization, a topic I’m passionate about.

I often share ways to optimize that have to do with mindset or habit creation, but today I have a special episode for you that is about energy medicine. 

If you’re not familiar with energy medicine, you will be by the end of today. So here’s what I’m about to share with you:

First of all, we’ll talk about what energy medicine is all about and I’ll discuss what conditions it is helpful for and different modalities that utilize it. Think of this as an overview of the field.

Then I’m going to highlight 3 practitioners who are using energy medicine in different ways and share some of their resources with you so you can explore further if you wish. 

We’ll finish by talking about how you can bring some of this work into your life to reap optimal benefits in the shortest amount of time.

Are you ready? Alright, then let’s jump in. 

OK: So what is energy medicine?

You know what energy is and you know what medicine is, but when you put the two together, they mean something quite different. You can say this term is more than the sum of its parts. 

In your body, you have subtle forms of energy known as chi or prana. The philosophy of energy medicine is that we experience illness from disturbances in this energy. A variety of different modalities, some of which I’ll cover, use the body’s energy and aim to rebalance it to relieve you of illnesses.  

This may all sound highly theoretical, but it doesn’t have to be. Try this with me. Rub your hands together…and now slowly separate your hands apart at a small distance. You can try to form the shape of a ball with your hands and play around with this. You can try making it smaller or bigger. 

What did you notice? Hopefully you were able to feel a magnetic pull between your hands. This is a small example of the energy that exists in and around you. 

Clearly finding the energy field isn’t what’s going to cure you. But it is to demonstrate that the field exists. Now the question is how can energy medicine help you. 

According to the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP) energy medicine can help with conditions that range from academic performance and learning disorders to addictions, cravings, and weight loss. It also helps with psychiatric disorders such as trauma, aggression, anxiety, burnout, and many more.  

There are scores of modalities to choose from and they all work with the energy of the body, but each in its own unique way. Some are verbal. Most are nonverbal. Three that I want to mention include Emotion Freedom Technique (also known as tapping because it taps on acupressure points on the body), reiki (a Japanese form of healing that uses universal energy), and homeopathy (which takes the essence of living matter, waters it down to lower the dose to the point where sometimes the original plant is no longer part of the remedy). 

It’s too big a task to really do these therapies justice in such a short segment, but I wouldn’t write any of them off until you’ve tried them. Too often people are skeptical, but if they take the attitude of “I’ve got nothing to lose,” they sometimes find that the treatment improved their condition or even cured it. 

There are energy medicine practitioners all over the world, but why not start with the best? So I picked three people who are known for something in particular and that have a specific message to share.

The first is Donna Eden. 

Donna Eden is the guru of energy medicine. In a paradoxical way, perhaps, she suffered from many health conditions as a child. But it just so happened that she was also gifted with the ability to see the body’s subtle energies. By working with the body’s energy system, she was able to cure herself and has since dedicated her life’s work to healing others and teaching her system of healing through her book, Energy Medicine, her Youtube videos, and her trainings. I’ll post a link to her free online classes in the show notes. 

While the various energy medicine modalities can help with scores of physical and emotional issues, my primary focus for you is on boosting your energy levels. 

Donna created the Energy Medicine Kit, a set of daily energy routines that takes 5 minutes and boosts your energy. As part of this, she has you tap on energy points, cross opposite sides of your body to help integrate the two sides of the brain, trace the meridians, and incorporate breathing and affirmation. This routine is designed to help clear your mind, move toxins out of the body, and increase strength and protection. 

What’s so amazing is that often in traditional medicine, cures don’t exist. The best we can do in many cases is provide relief from the symptoms. But using energy medicine, you can power up the body to be more resilient. Donna’s work has helped people stabilize many aspects of their health including their blood pressure and mood, helped them lose weight, and increase their energy.

I teach Emotional Intelligence as a way to manage your anxiety, overwhelm, frustration or any other negative emotion you might feel. It’s what is referred to as a top down approach. We focus our minds on creating the mental shift to alter our emotions and behaviors. 

What Donna teaches is how to come out of a negative emotional state through a bottom up approach. In essence, she teaches how to use the body’s energy to work for you rather than against you. 

The second practitioner I want to share with you is Jill Blakeway. She works quite differently from Donna. Jill is a Doctor of Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine. The New York Times described her as a “fertility goddess.” On her website, she does a fabulous job of breaking down the elements of energy medicine including qi (another word for energy), meridians, fascia, chakras, and more. I’ll share that link in the show notes as well if you want to dig a bit deeper into this world and understand the terminology. 

In one of her interviews, she talked about the placebo effect and I wanted to share this quote with you because it really helps to explain part of the mind-body connection. She says, “The placebo is…a way of influencing the mind to control the body’s intelligence.”

Lastly, I want to point you in the direction of Dr. James Oschman, especially if you are the kind of person who is skeptical about things you cannot physically grasp or see with your eyes. Dr. James is a professor at the Energy Medicine University and the President of Nature’s Own Research Association. For those of you who feel this field is too woo woo, you’ve got to check out James’ writing in the books, Energy Medicine: The Scientific Basis and Energy Medicine in Therapeutics and Human Performance because he delves into the physiology and biophysics of energy medicine. 

Coming back full circle to the purpose of today, I want you to consider ways to utilize energy medicine to help boost your energy. So check out the show notes for links to some of the references I mentioned including the videos and books by Donna, Jill, and James. And consider taking on the energy challenge and practicing Donna’s morning routine for 5 minutes each day to supercharge your energy. Even if you’re skeptical, I challenge you to be scientific about it. Keep a log of your energy levels from 1 (very low) to 10 (bouncing off the walls) and see how you feel before and after the 5 minute exercise routine. If it doesn’t help, drop it like a hot potato. No harm, no foul.

Cool? 

And don’t forget to share your experience with me. Just leave a comment below the episode. I’d be thrilled to read it and know this has reached you. 

And while I’ve been talking to you about getting reenergized through utilizing the body, I also want to share that I put together a Mindset Mastery Starter Kit for those of you who want resources around stress, burnout, imposter syndrome, and the like. It’s totally free and you can find it on my website: www.drsharongrossman.com

So get cracking. I’ll see you next time!

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