The Pain Chronicles 1
How Energy Medicine saves people
During this time of year, when we’re all hyper focused on our health, it seems we have more illness and malaise than at other times of the year. Though we’re doing what we can, exercising, eating right, intermittent fasting, scarfing down supplements, we’re still not feeling great.
I have been rather slow to get going in this epic New Year 2025, mostly because I am suffering from lack of energy caused by low level, chronic, back pain. It’s ironic, but I have been unable to write about Pain because of …pain. Apologies to my beautiful—and patient— readers.
So we head off to our doctor, if we have one. The doctor practices something called Allopathic Medicine which relies on blood tests, drugs and surgery. Tests are ordered and they come back negative. You’re healthy! And still feeling miserable.
If you suffer from pain, there may be X-rays, and more tests. And eventually, you’re given a prescription and sent home. In the US, roughly one person per day consumes a painkiller of some kind, often a highly addictive opioid. Since the fundamental failure of the pandemic response, we also suffer from a steady drip of statistical ‘excess deaths’ all across western nations. This isn’t acknowledged in the ‘legacy press’, but it’s safe to say that we’re in a lot of pain, mental, physical, emotional and spiritual.
And so, if you want to feel good and regain your mojo, you may have to look to Alternative Medicine, which could be massage, a bone specialist, physiotherapy or even my personal favourite, Energy Medicine, based on the Chinese system of Meridiens connecting every part of your body like a superhighway. Along these highways, there are pressure points that connect the Meridians in surprising ways. The system is intricate, complex and this post is too short for a description. Suffice it to say that these energy flows on the Meridiens can become blocked, like an actual traffic jam and then trouble follows. Your body sends you a message in the form of pain. Which we tend to shoot with drugs, but that Energy Medicine approaches in a much deeper way. It asks for the emotional driver that underlies the pain, and it connects the pain to its source, which may be in another body part altogether.
I have had personal experience with it and every time, it felt like a miracle, restoring my energy, and curing pain. The first time, after a serious operation in 2006, Mike Lang, a Doctor of Chinese Medicine who practiced acupuncture and massage in Vancouver, restored my energy. He had been trained in Mongolia where his mother, the Matron in a large hospital, was practicing a combination of western and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). This is common all over China, but the West has yet to integrate TCM into everyday practice. None of my doctors has ever suggested that I consult a TCM doctor and I can’t help wondering why. More on that later.
The second time was after a hip replacement that had gone well but had also felled me with a serious secondary infection. After I finally got home, I was busy learning how to move normally again, and also fighting a deep fatigue. Help came from a surprising source: I visited an old friend of mine in Vancouver who had, without me knowing it, an ability to heal people by moving her hands over their body, not even touching it. This is something that you cannot learn; it is a gift, often running in families, as it did in hers. She offered to give me a treatment, and having nothing to lose, I agreed. I shall never forget the dramatic and almost immediate change. She said that my energies were ‘all over the place’, and all she had done was to bring order into this chaos. I got up feeling healthy and well for the first time in many years. I owe her.
But what is Energy Medicine, and how many modalities are based on this ancient concept?
Acupuncture: In traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture involves inserting thin needles into specific points on the body to balance the flow of energy, known as qi (or chi), through meridians.
Reiki: This Japanese practice involves a practitioner channeling universal life energy through their hands into the recipient's body, with the goal of clearing energy blockages and restoring balance.
Therapeutic Touch: A form of energy healing where the practitioner uses their hands to sense and manipulate the energy field around the body to promote healing.
Healing Touch: Similar to Therapeutic Touch, this technique involves gentle touch or hovering hands above the body to influence the energy field and enhance the body's healing process.
Sound Healing: Certain frequencies of sound, such as those produced by tuning forks, singing bowls, or even music, are used to balance the body’s energy and promote healing.
Chakra Healing: Based on the concept of chakras, or energy centers in the body, chakra healing aims to open, balance, or align the chakras to support overall health.
Quantum Healing: Quantum healing suggests that the mind and energy fields can influence the body's health at a quantum level, using focused intention and energy practices to promote self-healing.
I remember a time when acupuncture was literally being compared to witchcraft or worse. We have come a long way since then, and here on the West Coast, Energy practitioners are relatively plentiful. These alternative health approaches are widely known and accepted and we even have our very own School of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in Vancouver.
My Mongolian doctor has since returned to China and I live in Victoria. Because of my extreme fatigue and chronic back pain, I took a chance and made an appointment with a doctor whose office is only a block away, in a penthouse suite. The picture of an older woman with warm blue eyes convinced me to make that appointment. There were at least three other equally credentialed TCM doctors in my neighborhood but simply by noting my emotional reaction to their faces, I chose this one.
Either I’m good at judging character from faces or I simply got lucky, but this doctor turned out to be as good as or perhaps better than my Mongolian doctor had been. She spoke the language of Chinese medicine, explained what she was doing, asked intelligent questions and did not use a single needle. After a good hour during which I lay on a comfortable recliner with a breathtaking view of Victoria below, I got up feeling almost no pain at all. She said that I should come back in a week if I wanted to make this a permanent improvement and get rid of the last niggling pain. I agreed and walked to the market to get some yogurt. Almost pain free, hallelujah.
But I am still rather tired so the next instalment of this pain chronicle will have to wait a few days. I promise, there is a lot more to this than my personal story. I also want to tell you about my conversation with one of the pioneers of Energy Medicine, Dr Michael Greenwood. He is the author of three books and headed the Victoria Pain Clinic from the mid nineties to 2009. So bear with me; there’s a lot more to come!
Here is his website that allows you to take a test to find out where you fit into the Chinese system of the five elements. I took it and discovered that I am mostly Wood and Fire. I get fiery pretty fast, and so the test is correct. Find out where you fit in.
https://paradoxpublishing.com
👍🐉🖖 I am taking the test!