Body, rebooted

For centuries, healers have examined and integrated consciousness with the body. Consciousness, or what’s going on in our mind, is the thread of life. Although it’s a challenge to measure, it cannot be dismissed. In the words of philosopher Aristotle, “The energy of the mind is the essence of life.”

The field of energy medicine and energy psychology in America dates back almost two centuries. These are umbrella terms that refer to techniques designed to heal physical, emotional or spiritual imbalances by impacting a person’s energy body or biofield. Nicola Tesla, the inventor of modern alternating current technology, was keenly interested in these practices and building technology for it. He believed “If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” Psychologist Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D referred to this idea as the “BodyMind” and introduced it to the fitness and medical industry in 1950, launching an ongoing exploration of the vital body and mind connection.

Today, energy medicine is officially recognized by the U.S. healthcare systems as a sub-specialty within the larger field of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). The discussion of the connection has expanded from ancient healing practices based on the notion of energy as vital essence: qi or chi in traditional Chinese medicine, and prana in Eastern yogic traditions, which describes vitality and life breath of the energy body that extends beyond the physical, mental and emotional body.

New energy therapies are becoming prevalent, and while they may vary in technique, they all serve to expand our understanding of the body’s capability to heal. They all give us insight into the way our psychology and physiology interact with each other, as well as interact with the world around us. And interest in new therapies is growing: Americans spent $33.9 billion on alternative medicine, according to the most recent figures from the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

From BodyMind to BodyTalk

Greg Wieting, the founder of The Resilience Project, a Reiki School integrating meditation and yogic philosophy into the curriculum, is a yogi, Reiki master and meditation coach. He also practices a form of energy healing called BodyTalk. Wieting explained to 24Life that this modern-day technique is a personalized healthcare approach that serves to restore communication among the systems of the body, while also rebooting the body’s natural ability to heal. Wieting credits BodyTalk and other energy practices with guiding him on his own healing journey through chronic pain, anxiety, depression, scoliosis and sexual abuse trauma.

Like many others, Wieting grew up always looking for a quick fix to his chronic pain and illnesses, and yet chasing and suppressing symptoms never addressed his pain. In fact, his pain increasingly affected the quality of his life and he was left searching for an entirely new solution. Finally, in his early 20s, Wieting was introduced to Reiki (a type of hands-on body healing therapy), and he began on a path that led him to BodyTalk, yoga and meditation.

Today, Wieting stands inches taller and is pain-free — and no longer suffers from depression or anxiety. He has radically transformed the quality of his life and the lives of the clients and students he now serves, all thanks to energy healing.

The body as a symphony orchestra

Wieting explains that BodyTalk practice begins with the principle that you can only experience true health and well-being when all parts of the body are functioning as a whole. Wieting says,

However, stress, trauma, environmental toxins and influences all can compromise how the body functions as a whole. And when internal communication short-circuits, the body’s systems begin to break down. That’s when symptoms, illness and disease creep in and get in the way of our potential.

According to Wieting, BodyTalk taps each participants’ inner resources for healing through muscle testing and tapping. Muscle testing is a technique that uses simple physical resistance to downward pressure on your outstretched hand, for example, to measure your neuromuscular biofeedback in conjunction with your verbal response to the practitioner’s very specific yes/no questions. This feedback helps the BodyTalk practitioner consult the body’s healing mechanism — the “conductor” of the body’s symphony — and uncover and prioritize any communication breakdowns that may be blocking the body’s ability to “talk” and function as a whole.

Tapping is a set of techniques that utilize the body’s energy points to stimulate circulation and healing. It’s becoming a common self-care technique for directing energy. For example, tapping over the crown of your head is a practice that helps the brain register new pathways of communication, while tapping over your heart synchronizes the entire body’s energy through the heart — the largest electromagnetic field in the body. Practitioners customize these two manual tapping sequences to a patient’s specific needs, to help ensure that the new changes in the nervous system establish a long-lasting change in overall health.

Symptoms are really just the tip of the iceberg

Wieting says that essentially, BodyTalk unravels what rests beneath the surface of our health concerns to reveal our potential — and to facilitate deep healing on all levels, shifting our bodies out of a perpetual fight-or-flight stress response. As we learn more about epigenetic medicine and the switching pathways that trigger genes on or off based on environmental conditions including emotions, these practices are anticipated to become even more useful as self-care techniques.

If you’d like to try out an energy reset for yourself, visit Meditations4Life — a free video series for 24Life readers from Greg Wieting.