introduction to qigong energy healing (2/3)

introduction-to-qigong-healing-part-2

summary

This is the second in a series of articles sharing my understanding and experience of Qigong healing, also known as ‘Medical Qigong’, one of the lesser-known areas of traditional Chinese medicine.

In this article I the explore methods of preparation and diagnosis I use in my daily healing practice with patients and students at Peak House Practice.

You can read part 1 in this series here.

essential teaching notes

 

Preparation: heal yourself first

One of the best ways of preparing yourself for a healing situation is to be in a meditative and receptive state, and that’s why I really value Qigong meditation.

As I mentioned in my previous article, I first encountered the concept of meditating and balancing your Qi before treating or interacting with clients during my training in China, and I now find this practice invaluable. When I am in a balanced and harmonious state all my senses are more open and sensitive to feeling and identifying my client’s Qi imbalances.

This may be as obvious picking up on the words or phrases that they are using, but it could also be their body posture and positioning, the tone of their voice, means of eye contact, and even smell or facial colour. Qi is projected on a multitude of levels and so there are many opportunities that may lead to identifying the imbalance that requires addressing and harmonising.

Fundamentally, as a practitioner when you are in this state of meditation and heightened perception, the Qigong healing is already taking place, quite simply because you are ‘creating the space’ in the interaction between you and your client, which in turn helps you identify and understand their unique imbalances.

It also can remind you to maintain the balance between yourself and your client, because if you get too ‘connected’ or drawn into what may be a momentarily negative energy or situation, this can have a detrimental effect on your ability to diagnose and effectively treat the overall energy field of the patient.

I sometimes think of Qigong meditation as my personal Qigong healing, and as practitioners I believe that keeping our wellbeing balanced and healthy is one of the greatest gifts we can give to our clients.

So if you are anyway connected to the healing profession, or even give healing as loving assistance to family and friends, I would strongly suggest that you always take a few moments at the beginning of your working day or before you proceed with the healing, to experience healing for yourself: confirm and reinforce your personal balance, connect to your intention, check that you have no expectations or desires concerning the healing process, and, above all, value and respect yourself in the healing process that is about to take place.

Preparation: creating a healing environment

The importance of creating an appropriate ‘healing environment’ is often overlooked, but nevertheless I think it’s something that you should consider seriously as part of your healing practice.

The healing environment includes the room or space where you undertake the healing or treatment, which obviously should be comfortable by ensuring it’s warm, feels secure, quiet, and is a place that you client is happy to spend an hour in exploring different zones of their psyche.

I also like to use music, as I think it helps create a suitable healing environment, but you should always be mindful that music reflects a personal choice, and so ensure that your choice doesn’t negatively affect your client’s relaxation or your concentration and intention.

peak-house-practice-treatment-room

Also, remember you are part of the ‘healing environment’, so how you look and greet your client, the tone of your voice, and how relaxed you appear makes a difference.

Always be mindful to offer the intention of looking forward to your time together, so that you create a personal energy that encourages your client to feel relaxed, at ease, and trusting in the forthcoming process.

This brings me to the important topic of trust – aside from all of your professional knowledge and experience, I believe the most important skill in your ‘healing toolbox’ is to gain trust.

Your personal integrity should never be in doubt; this is the greatest asset that you can give your client; if your client feels relaxed and calm and trusting in you, then the healing process is far more positive and rewarding, for both of you.

I find in my daily practice that the concept of trust is also one of the most important emotional issues that my clients have difficulty in personally balancing, and in this regard I find that my greatest healing ‘weapon’ is my own integrity!

When a client feels they can confide and work with you on very profound and deep personal, their emotional issues become less fearful, you can both to begin to address the deep rooted fears they may hold, and this is when the greatest healing and most profound changes take place.

 

Preparation: checking your healing intention

My understanding is that Reiki healers use techniques to ‘protect’ themselves during the healing process as a vital part of their skill set, however, with Qigong healing this is not so.

As you become attuned to the balance of your client’s Qi field it would be counter-productive to consider putting up your own ‘barriers’ and ‘avoidances’ to the flow of Qi, as these would only create additional blocks in the energy field you are attempting to harmonise and dissolve.

With Qigong healing I believe that the focus should instead be on keeping your intention clear and firm, which is why, as I mentioned before, it is very important to ensure that you are personally ‘balanced’ before performing any healing or treatment.

I would ask you to be particularly mindful of this when treating members of your family as it can be difficult to maintain your emotional balance if you are emotionally connected to the person that you are healing. I also strongly recommend that you do not undertake any Qigong healing if you are not in the appropriate frame of mind as this will be counterproductive for both you and your client.

Qigong healing is a very powerful and profound form of treatment and should always be treated as such. If given appropriately, with the right knowledge and experience, the results can be amazing -healing times significantly reduce and the enjoyment of the treatment sessions for both you and your patient is tremendously improved.

 

Diagnosis: the role of pulse taking

Pulse taking is a lifetime’s practice, when I observing and receiving teachings from doctor practitioners in China I am always amazed at the sheer amount of detailed information they can obtain by taking their patients pulses.

Dis-harmonies in the body leave a clear ‘imprint’ on the pulse and the classic Chinese texts reflect many centuries of effort in classifying the basic pulses with their associated dis-harmonies.

Pulse taking as a diagnostic healing tool can be quite daunting in terms of its complexity, however, when teaching my students, many of whom only have a very basic Chinese medicine knowledge, I always remind them not place too much value on an ‘accurate’ diagnosis as, on a very basic yet profound level, the process of holding your client’s hands and resting your fingers lightly on their wrists is a very valuable part of the healing process.

At the start of a healing session the gentle process of quietly connecting and pausing with a client can be very reassuring for them, and it can also give the practitioner an intuitive feel of the person they are about to treat. Once, when taking the pulse of an elderly female client, she smiled and remarked “you know dear, that’s the first time somebody has held my hand in 50 years!“, this reminded me how something as simple as the physical act of taking pulses can affect people on many levels.

If you do want to read more about pulse taking from a Chinese medicine perspective I would recommend Ted J. Kaptchuk’s book on Chinese medicine ‘The Web that has No Weaver’ , here the author gives a full description on all the qualities that you may encounter while investigating the wonderful subject of Chinese medicine pulse taking.

 

Diagnosis: using conversation & intuition to understand a patient’s energy field

One of the interesting concepts of Qigong healing is the perception of Qi and how an imbalance in an energy field can manifest in the body. As a Chinese medicine practitioner and a counsellor/therapist I work every day attempting to rebalance and harmonise a client’s energy flow by clearing blockages and stagnations in a their Qi field, which may be physical, emotional, spiritual, or a combination of all three.

During this work we obviously talk about what they consider to be the cause of their problems; this can sometimes be easily detected and traced back to a knowable injury, accident or incident in their life, yet on many occasions my clients remain mystified in understanding the origin of their problems.

One of the concepts that a lot of clients find difficult to comprehend is that an emotional or mental blockage, or what I term a ‘misunderstanding’ in their thinking, could be causing the presenting physical problem.

This misunderstanding, and the imbalance in Qi it precipitates, can on occasions be tracked back into their early childhood, and, although it may now be manifesting and presenting itself as a physical problem, the issue may well be that the historic emotional misunderstanding has never actually been dealt with effectively.

This is not uncommon, as misunderstandings in a person’s belief system, and how they view the world and their place within it, get buried in the subconscious mind, just a virus would on the hard drive of a computer.

The effects of this can sometimes lie undetected and unknowingly accommodated by the individual, or sometimes, when it is detected, an elaborate network of ‘avoidances’ created, because the fundamental misunderstanding seems so fearful, unsolvable or unfathomable to them.

So how is all this relevant to Qigong healing? Well, when you approach the client from a Qigong healing perspective, you view them as a holistic energy field, comprising of mind, body and spirit, including everything that is unique to them, their environment, and their past experiences.

Sometimes a client will say to me “I don’t know whether this is important, but…“, and then refers to something that happened to them when they were seven or eight years old, I remind them that if they can remember incidents or statements given to them that long ago, over the millions of other experiences in their lives, you can bet your life it’s important! This then gives me a signpost to an energy field that may need to be addressed and rebalanced.

If our energies are balanced and harmonious optimum health will result; yet any imbalances have the potential to cause illness or disease. I like to use the analogy of a symphony orchestra, with its many varied sections and instruments; for us to enjoy the full majesty of the orchestra it has to be organised and conducted in a balanced way, with the different sections and musicians playing together harmoniously; the same applies to our own balance of personal energies if we are to be healthy and reach our personal majesty.

It is also worth noting that a presenting imbalance in Qi does not necessarily mean a ‘weakness’ or ‘deficiency’, it could simply be that some fine tuning of the balance of the ‘instruments’ in the energetic orchestra is required!

I find this energetic approach to health fascinating, and working with client’s energy field can be one of the most rewarding experiences, both for the client in regaining their optimum balance and wellbeing, and also for the practitioner striving to harmonise the intricate diversities of the client’s unique Qi field.

I hope this short article gives you a broad overview of how to approach preparation and diagnosis in Qigong healing practice. When I have the privilege of working with a client, I always make sure that I am in the most balanced position that I can be in at that moment; that the Qi of both my external and internal environment is harmonious; and that I am open to all possibilities that may be presented to me during the session.

 

Read Part 3, where I explore different methods of Qigong healing, including opening and closing protocols, and the healing with the Tan T’ien.

This series of articles on Qigong healing is also published in the International IMOS Journal.

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