I’ve established a reputation for being the person to go to for “hard” or “mystery” ailments. Because I’ve taught energy medicine internationally for so many years, I get a lot of referrals for people who’ve been to see many doctors and other practitioners who haven’t been able to help. And I’m happy to say that I usually am able to help when no one else seems to be able to offer any hope.

So by the time people get to me, they are often desperate for answers and desperate for hope. Understandably, they have lots of questions. And the most difficult question to answer is also the most common and the most natural question of all: “How long will it take for me to heal?”

Recently, I had a new patient see me out of concern over a uterine fibroid or myoma. She had been recommended surgery, but was concerned that surgery would affect her ability to have a child later, so she wanted to explore natural options. And of course, she asked me if I had experience working with this issue, and how long did I think it would take to address her complaint. It’s a common condition, so you’d think it would be easy to answer that question, but it’s actually a larger question – read on while I discuss why.

Causes vs. Symptoms

It’s hard to answer because I help people heal – which is a lot different than covering up symptoms. And I don’t know how long that will take. I don’t know how many layers there are to the imbalances that are creating their symptoms. If I just focus on the symptoms, I’m not doing healing. I don’t give medicines to counteract symptoms, because that isn’t healing. And I don’t treat the symptom directly, I always work towards balancing the root of someone’s problems. Most problems don’t happen overnight, and the signs and symptoms develop slowly over time. Some of the signs we dismiss as aging, but bottom line is we usually wait until something is really wrong before we tell the doctor about it.

The other issue for me is that after working with patients for 25 years, I know everything is connected. The physical health problem someone is having is likely a case of the body losing efficiency in it’s natural healing and restorative processes. We are supposed to repair our bodies every day when we rest. If that goes well, we age very slowly and stay healthy. If stress keeps us from going into rest and healing mode, we get behind on healing. If we get stressed for a day, we’re a little tired the next day. If we stay stressed for a long time we get way behind on healing and restoration and we eventually develop disease.

So how we handle our stress affects the efficiency of our body. Our reactions to life stresses create emotional responses, which affect the state of our nervous system. And our nervous system controls the functioning of our body and how efficient it is. This explains why emotional imbalance is considered the major cause of disease in Chinese Medicine.

The Cause

So what’s the real cause of my patient’s fibroid? In simple terms, a fibroid represents blood stagnation from a Chinese Medicine perspective. This means that either there is not enough blood or that the blood is not flowing vigorously enough to prevent accumulation or stagnation of blood, leading to the kind of benign tumor that we call a fibroid. This blood stagnation can come from several causes.

The emotion that corresponds to blood is joy. So not enough blood implies not enough joy. In my patient’s case, she feels stuck in a job she doesn’t like, has a desire to do some other work, but somehow isn’t either manifesting or perhaps recognizing opportunities to create a change in her career. She also doesn’t have a steady boyfriend, which is another stumbling block on the road to her other life desire of having children.  Hopefully a boyfriend would bring some more joy into her life and her body and her blood. And at least a few moments of joy would also be necessary for conception, if you catch my meaning.

When you don’t have strong blood, you feel tired and don’t sleep well or soundly. That fits my patient’s situation as well. She works late, but can’t sleep in because she’s a light sleeper (a blood deficiency sign) and noises wake her in the morning before she has rested enough. So she is always tired. When you are tired and depleted it is harder to make changes in your life – you are just surviving, which is depressing, which means no joy. It’s kind of like a circle where the lack of joy means weak of blood, which makes it harder to find daily joy, and so on in a continuous circle.

Feeling stuck emotionally also puts stress on the Liver meridian, and the Liver meridian is responsible for keeping Qi and Blood flowing throughout the whole body, and especially through the lower abdomen – where her stagnation is occurring. And I actually prefer to say stagnation rather than fibroid, because that makes it more understandable and approachable. Because the physical stagnation is always associated with emotional or spiritual stagnation. If we can shift the mind, the Qi and Blood will follow.

Our Path

The difference people who continually grow and evolve throughout life and those who don’t is that the people who do believe they can, and believe that they are worth it. We all know people of great talent who don’t achieve much, and others with average talent who nonetheless succeed in life.  We all know people who are kind, personable, and attractive who stay single forever. It is our beliefs that determine whether or not we expect the universe (or the person you fancy) to say yes when we ask for something.

The Liver meridian is also responsible for helping us to see a path through life that leads to more opportunity and more growth. So the key to improving blood circulation in the lower abdomen relates to the same energy center that helps us to see our path in life. You can’t really separate the two issues.

Hope

If I am I going to help my patient reduce or eliminate her fibroid I’m going to have to help her body to do the job. Like most of my patients she is a distance patient that I treat over the phone. I can’t do surgery or even acupuncture at a distance. But I can help to shift her energy, and to address emotional states and beliefs that affect how her body makes blood. And that can change not only how her body works to improve circulation and health of her uterus, it can also affect the choices she makes in her life and the opportunities that are available to her.

That’s why “How long will this take?” is a big question. The challenge is that I don’t know how many layers there are and how ready she is to shift. So I simply can’t make specific promises. The good news is that whatever I do to help her fibroid is more than likely going to help her find more joy and opportunity in her personal and professional life. Finding a natural way to reduce the fibroid is great – if that same method helps to help her find a better job, a partner, and a baby then I’m really helping her as a person, not just treating her uterus. That’s my goal, because they are all related to the same quality of energy and mind.

So my hope is healing on all levels. People can change their mind in an instant when they are ready, then the energy and nervous system change and the body changes when the nervous system tells it to change. By the time people find me, they are usually ready to change their mind and ready to heal. Where there’s a will to change, there’s a way.  There’s hope for her, there’s hope for me in my life challenges, and there’s hope for you in your challenges. Wish her (and yourself) luck.

Note:

I’m not against medications or surgery. Sometimes medications are really necessary. Sometimes surgery is really necessary. But medications don’t cure disease, they control symptoms. That’s important, because some symptoms can kill you, or make life very difficult. There are a lot of smart people who have dedicated their lives to finding better ways to control symptoms and to save people’s lives in an emergency. I’m grateful for all of those researchers and clinicians, and they serve an important need.  I’m interested in healing, not covering up problems, so I write about non-medical options.

I gave a lecture on Accunect at the central hospital in Torino, Italy, at the Ospedale Molinette in early December, which I was very excited about – I even wrote about beforehand in a previous blog post. It was very successful in many ways: it was attended by approximately 300 people, and there was a lot of enthusiasm. So why has it taken me this long to write about it?

The whole experience was very exciting and very auspicious. I mean, I got invited to Italy to speak to 300 people at a big hospital about how Accunect can work with western medicine to facilitate true integrative medicine – how cool is that? That’s what society needs to be doing in the future, combining the power of western medicine in controlling symptoms with holistic approaches to improve health. And Accunect was designed to be usable by even the busiest professionals – that’s why I call it the Future of Medicine, Today. But the experience was also a little sobering in terms of seeing more clearly the challenges that face hospitals in incorporating techniques that are completely outside the box from their perspective.  To be honest, I’ve needed the natural period of reflection that visits us at the New Year to come to terms with the experience.

Seeing People, not just Symptoms

On the one hand, there is genuine interest and a sincere understanding of the need to expand the horizons of mainstream medical thought. As one of the doctors on the panel pointed out to me, quite passionately, people don’t come to the hospital with just one, neatly defined illness, they come with multiple problems. And this is where medicine fails. This is why they know they need to look for holistic ways of treating real people with complex problems. Medicine isn’t very good at juggling multiple conditions. It is a reductionist way of looking at problems: let’s break it down to the smallest detail and then treat symptoms at that level. Hey, some symptoms can kill you, so we should all be grateful that so many smart people have dedicated themselves to saving lives by figuring out how to control symptoms.

But if all you do is control symptoms you’re missing the point. When people have lots of symptoms from different conditions the symptom management model. The more medications someone is on, the more the possibility of side-effects. Most medication doesn’t make you better, it just controls symptoms and may create stress on the body that keeps it from healing on a deeper level. You can get into a vicious circle of dependency on medication that keeps you from healing so that you need the medication permanently rather than to just get over a temporary problem. Plus, by the time you have a lot of symptoms, it becomes really hard to figure out what the real problem is. And you end up prescribing more medication to control the side effects of the first medications.

So it was great to find that kind of clarity about both the challenges that face medicine and the need to incorporate other strategies. And about 300 people showed up – doctors, students, therapist, and interested members from the general public. So what was my problem?

Politics are Everywhere

Here’s part of the delay in writing about this. Although the reception to my lecture was very favorable overall, there was one exception. Part of me wanted to ignore this part of the experience and just report that it was all awesome, but my New Year’s resolution is to be as authentic and real as I can in every aspect of my life, including business.

After I finished the lecture and did a few demonstration Accunect sessions, I opened up the floor for questions. The first question was not really a question it was a long negative comment. Well, to be perfectly honest, it was a rant. The former director of the hospital objected strenuously to the presentation of something that was so novel and outside the normal parameters of western medicine and not backed up by statistical studies. I might have been more flustered except for the fact that his comments were so over the top that it was almost ludicrous – the longer it went on, the more I just wanted to laugh and say “Really?” As I later learned, the hospital director is appointed by the ruling political party rather than being a position that it is filled according to experience and merit. So the whole thing was a political drama between a disgruntled loser and the current administration. Let me hasten to add, that I say loser in a literal sense, not as a character judgment – the fellow in question literally lost his job in the last political election.

On a positive note, the panel that had invited me to speak effectively put the nay-sayer in his place. But it was still kind of sad and embarrassing that politics marred the sincere efforts of true visionaries to broaden the horizons and to pave the way for integrative medicine. And even though political structures vary by country, politics affects medical policy everywhere, and that is what I have been reflecting about.

On another positive note, I have had more medical doctors train in Accunect in the short time (3 years) that I have been teaching it than I ever had study BodyTalk in the 10 years that I taught that system. And I am happy to say that every single medical doctor who has trained in Accunect is using it in their practice, which is a nice change from the previous ten years. So I know that Accunect does and will play a role in the future of medicine.

But it’s good to learn from experiences, and I have been reflecting on my experience at the lecture. I thought it was a really good experience, and a generally well-received lecture, but what could I have done better? What would I change in hindsight? Is there anything I could have done that might have side-stepped the political drama?

In hindsight, I think I spent a bit too much time on explaining the science behind Accunect. Accunect is the most scientifically valid approach to healthcare in existence, but that doesn’t mean it’s the way to explain it. As I processed it afterwards with Carlo Torazzi and Riccardo Torazzi, who have organized all the Accunect classes in Italy and provided the connection for the hospital lecture, I realized that maybe I was too attached to proving that I was a good scientist. And I am a scientist by training and education, I graduated with top honors, and I was raised in a family of scientists.  Carlo wondered (gently, bless his kind-hearted soul) if I may have been trying to make my parents proud of me by giving an overly intellectual lecture about the scientific basis of Accunect. Guilty as charged. I should know by now that features don’t convince people, benefits do, and focusing too much on the science invites people into their left-brain, analytical part of their mind where we look for problems, instead of into their hearts where we look for truth.

I had a chance to process it further this last weekend in Montana – one of the students in the class is a former hospital administrator, and I discussed the experience with him. One of his comments was essentially to be careful not to get caught up in competing directly according to medical standards – essentially don’t get trapped into playing their game. Because medicine isn’t really ruled by scientific principles, it is an industry ruled by economic forces. And the big players have the money to fund statistical studies that make it all seem scientific. We can’t win against big money at their own game – we need to sidestep their game completely and be seen through different eyes.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics

Disraeli said that, and I agree.  And this brings me to why I emphasized the part about not being backed up by studies above. As soon as the primary focus becomes too focused on the science, it invites comparison to medicine, which is perceived as scientific because it is “supported” by research and statistics. And I don’t want to go there. Why don’t I like statistical studies? Any number of reasons, including:

• You can’t do them for energy medicine.
  • You can’t do a double-blind study for obvious reasons
  • We don’t apply the same “treatment” for everyone with the same condition – everyone gets a unique, completely personalized balancing for their individual needs, even if they have similar symptoms.
• Don’t like the company.
  • Most medical studies poorly constructed with inadequate controls
  • Most of them reflect an inappropriate bias – data which doesn’t fit the desired result is often excluded
  • I’m not the kind of scientist who can throw out results I don’t like to fit a curve.
  • Funding of medical studies isn’t impartial.

It’s really hard to construct a study with valid methodology, which is why so few qualify as good science. Read more about the challenges in the British Medical Journal. Some estimate that as little of 1% of medical studies report accurate findings – read more here.

Studies will never prove anything, or change anyone’s mind. What changes people’s mind is trying it and having it work for themselves or for their patients. I’ve worked really hard at making Accunect simple, fast, and powerful. Because it is easy to learn and fast to do, doctors and other humans have time to try it and see changes, and that’s how it will grow and play a larger role.  One of the points I made at the lecture is that because Accunect is safe and super fast, it is appropriate to allow it to be included as an adjunct, so that clinicians get practical experience with it. I should made that point stronger by not focusing on so many other points.

Over-emphasizing the scientific principles behind Accunect makes it sound too medical and invites people to look at it the wrong way. I felt that BodyTalk grew too slowly because it was too left-brain in both practice and explanation, causing it to be too hard to learn, and to be too easily misperceived. That’s a mistake I have been trying to avoid, and I thought I had learned that lesson. In truth, I got carried away with the idea of presenting a scientific lecture at a big hospital. Sometimes you need to learn a lesson again to learn it better.

What Now? Or Keeping It Simple

The experience of giving the lecture was cool, in spite of my ruminations here on what could have been better. It was a great opportunity, it was a big event, there was a lot of enthusiasm and I’m really glad I went. I think it is really exciting that there is enough interest in the medical world to sponsor a lecture about cutting edge energy medicine at a major hospital. And through my reflection process (okay, let’s be honest and call it perfectionism) I’ve found a new commitment to first principles and keeping it simple.

What we can say about Accunect that can allow it to be used in hospitals and other medical environments is that it helps to reduce stress. Any more specific health benefit claims beg for research or studies to back them up with studies before including them. Fortunately, this is enough to say. This is really all there is to it:

• The body is able to heal itself
• The body is run by the nervous system
• The nervous system is run by the mind
• Stress distorts the mind and nervous system, creating physical imbalance
• Negative beliefs and perceptions create negative emotional states and stress
• No healing happens without changing our mind
• Hence all true healing is spiritual healing.
• Accunect promotes healing by relieving stress
• Accunect relieves stress by balancing the bodymind at an energetic and emotional-spiritual level

The Philosopher Physician

In the old days, great physicians in both the East and West were also philosophers because they recognized the need to treat the whole person, not just their body or just their symptoms. Somewhere along the way, the power of antibiotics, anesthetics and other drugs brought on by advances in chemistry seduced us away from this basic truth.

Controlling symptoms can be useful, but it is not healing. I come away from the experience with a clearer commitment to being a philosopher physician for the 21^st Century. To promoting the idea that to truly heal, we need to address the whole person on all levels, including the emotional and spiritual aspects. To being a spiritual healer because that’s how true healing happens.

One of my students this past weekend reminded me of a lecture I gave in Santa Monica years ago that shifted her whole perspective on health because I started it by saying that I was in the miracle business. And she thought, “that’s a business I can get excited by.”

The idea that the mind can heal the body is the most scientifically verified fact in medicine.  AND it’s a miracle.

So as we begin 2015, let me introduce the new and simpler me:

I’m a spiritual healer.

I help people heal their mind and body on all levels.

I help people with their limiting beliefs about themselves and how those thoughts are held in their body’s energy field.

I help people heal their life and their body at the same time because they are connected.

I teach other people to do spiritual healing, because it’s easy to learn, and a lot of people need spiritual healing – way more than I can reach by myself.

I’m in the miracle business.

I practice Accunect.

I’m so excited – I have been invited to speak at Ospedale Molinette, the central hospital in Torino, Italy to present how Accunect can be used as integrative medicine alongside mainstream healthcare. The lecture will be on December 4th and will be presented to a large audience of doctors, therapists, and students.

This is super exciting for me and a huge validation of what we were aiming for in the design of the Accunect curriculum.  We kept Accunect simple and easy precisely so that doctors and other busy professionals could actually include the techniques in a normal office visit. A nice bonus of this approach is that is easy to learn, and of course anyone can learn it in a weekend. The bottom line is, if a technique takes too long to learn and master, or if it takes too long to perform, then it is effectively unusable by practitioners who are busy and hence have limited time with each patient. Our company Future Medicine Today, because we want this work to part of medicine at all levels in the future and to truly be part of the future of medicine, Accunect has to be usable by even the busiest of professionals.

I’m very grateful to Carlo Torazzi and Riccardo Torazzi for bringing Accunect to Italy. They have both trained as Accunect SelfCare Instructors and and have both taught SelfCare as well as organizing Accunect Connect and Zoom – in Italian! This particular invitation has come through the efforts of Dr. Elisabetta Soro, who has taken both Accunect Connect and Accunect Zoom, as well as Accunect SelfCare. She has found that she is able to integrate Accunect into her practice with great results. I’m going to be presenting the principles and scientific basis of Accunect, as well as practical ways that busy healthcare professionals can include Accunect balancing as part of their routine patient care.

I will also be talking about the utility of referring to Accunect Practitioners for more in-depth balancing. This is where the Accunect Practitioner Certification program will play an important role. By defining standards of professional practice, we can create an environment where Accunect is accepted with the medical profession as an integral part of holistic care. I’ll be moving the certification program from soft launch to active signup shortly – look for a launch announcement soon.

Grazie!