Update on the Healing of a Broken Heart

I have been giving Qigong treatments.  Sometimes I have a rather remarkable experience happen during the treatment and sometimes the patients do.  But often, some of the most memorable and amazing things happen after the treatment.

In one of my first Qigong sessions with a volunteer patient, a friend of mine brought another woman with her to get a Qigong treatment.  This woman was suffering from deep sadness, having lost her true love a year ago with a sudden heart attack.  She was having a difficult time getting over the loss of having him in her life and that feeling of love she had come to expect.

The Qigong treatment, for me, was very powerful and I could feel her husband's presence in the room. During the treatment, I could also see valentines flowing with the energy to her heart while I worked on the pain in her heart.  I wrote about this experience in a prior blog; it was very powerful to me.  But for her, she didn't feel much during the treatment, which rather amazed me and also made me kind of sad.

But I recently heard from my friend with an update of how this woman is doing.  My friend reported how this woman started to feel different the very next day!   The first change she noticed was that she no longer felt the need to sit and cry.  She also didn't feel that constant hurt in her chest and that unbearable sadness that use to be so overwhelming.  She was starting to heal.

After a few more weeks, she even started to become more excited about life. She shared with my friend how she now could feel the presence of her former spouse around her at different times.  She no longer felt alone. She even started to dream again.

My friend said this woman now considers herself to be healed, and after just that one Qigong treatment!

Pretty cool, huh?
I was so delighted to hear this update.

Update on the Healing of a Broken Heart

What are the Benefits of Qigong?

The goal of Qigong is to improve the balance and flow of energy between the body, mind, and spirit.  As the energy and flow improves, a person can start to see as well as feel changes in not only their body, but also their mind and spirit as well.

So what can a person expect to feel when they start to either do Qigong exercises or start having Qigong medical treatments? 

These are just some of the benefits and changes a person will start to feel in their life when they start to balance their energy and improve the energy flow with Qigong:

CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MIND

• Easier to come up with solutions or see things more clearly
• Become more motivated
• Have a better memory
• Easier to make decisions &/or the decisions are more sound
• Ability to control emotions
• No longer sad or depressed or afraid
• Feel more peace and harmony and balanced.  Feel an inner glow.
• Seem to have greater insights and understanding

CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS IN THE BODY

• Feel less pain or even no pain
• Mobility is improved
• Feel less stressed out
• Find it easier to breathe
• Feel energized and not as fatigued
• Experience more meaningful sex

CHANGES IN THE SPIRIT

• Feel more connected to life, nature, other people
• Feel more love, both the ability to give love and receive love 
• Experience richer and deeper meditations, dreams, as well as insights
• Seem to understand people’s motives & behaviors more clearly
• Have more spiritual experiences with what you feel as the Divine
• Feel a greater sense of personal power and strength 

I have heard these reports of changes from many of my volunteer patients.  I'm now going to start collecting more of this type of data so I can better report and quantify the outcomes and changes being experienced.

What are the Benefits of Qigong?

Learning to Feel & Experience the Subtle Energy of Qi

Qigong is about using and directing the subtle energy called Qi (chee) through focused intention.   Most of us in the Acupuncture school I attend have been raised and educated in the West so even knowing about Qi is something some of us may have never even heard about before going to Acupuncture school. 

One of the first things our instructor had us do was to partner with a fellow student, stand face to face, and with our outstretched hand, approach the other person until we felt what she described as their energy field.  At first, most of us didn’t feel anything. We then started to focus and then repeated this process over again until we did feel a change when our hand slowly approached the other person’s body.  

We could feel the change of energy as our outstretched hand slowly approached their body.  Sometimes it was a few inches from their body.  Sometimes it was several inches from their body.  Sometimes it was even a few feet from their body.

We then switched partners and repeated the process until we felt the energy field around this person’s body, and then again would switch partners. 

We did this for over an hour and by the end of this experience, we were all excited how we were starting to pick up on different people’s energy field.

In our next exercise, our instructor had us partner with someone new, stand face to face, and have one person be the “receiver” and the other person be the “sender”. The receiver would stand with their eyes closed and the receiver would stand with their hand outstretched and concentrate on a specific color, such as “red.” 

As the sender thought and visualized their chosen color, the sender then focused SENDING this color to the receiver.  The receiver would then state what color he/she was receiving.  

At first this felt like guesswork, but as we continued this process, ALL of us began being correct in what color the sender was sending.  ALL of us!

What I learned on my very first day of Qigong training was

• yes, there is an energy field around the body and you can even feel it, and
• yes, you can focus your mind to send colors and even receive the color message

For me, even on that very first day of Qigong training, I walked away totally amazed.  I am a nurse and didn't even know about people's energy fields around their body.  I had heard of auras but had discounted them as not being real because I had never seen or felt them.

But all of this changed during this very first class, especially after one of my fellow students visualized sending me a color and I said "I see pink, but that perfume or lotion on your hand is a bit overbearing!" And she said, “I don’t have any lotion on my hands nor do I even wear perfume.  I was sending you pink roses in my visualization!”

The steps our instructor took on the first day of our day-long class are things probably most people would be able to do if they took the time and effort to experience it.  Feeling a person's energy field, and then practicing sending and receiving colors is a good initial step to learn about this subtle energy we call Qi (chee). 

Learning to Feel & Experience the Subtle Energy of Qi

Emotions Can Stagnate Qi Energy Flow

I had an interesting experience while giving a Qigong treatment to a man that had a great deal of financial stress and insecurity in his life. While I worked on his third chakra (which is the one most associated with emotions) I could feel his solar plexus change temperatures quickly and dramatically, depending on his current emotional state. 

For example, when this man became anxious and started to ruminate about all of the things he was afraid of (losing his job, having no money, becoming homeless, having no shoes, getting cracked feet, etc) the temperature in his third chakra and around his solar plexus would get hotter and hotter.  When this man became calm and got control over of his fears, the temperature in his third chakra and around his solar plexus would return to normal.  

I had not felt such a dramatic and swift change of energy stagnation being created in real time.  He turned on and off his fears almost as if he was able to flip a switch. This was such an intense demonstration of how quickly behavior and thoughts impact and change the energy flow in the body. When that Qi energy flow stagnates, it creates an abundance of heat in the specific parts of the body that are most associated with that specific emotion. Fear, for example, often causes Qi energy to get stuck in the kidneys and the third chakra.  Continual fear can lead to even more chronic stagnation creating problems in the joints and bones.   

Emotions really do affect the flow of Qi in the body.  Fear, grief, sadness, worry, anger - these are all emotions that can stagnate the flow of Qi.  When Qi stagnates, it also means blood gets stagnant, too (where the Qi goes, the blood follows).  When blood stagnates, this means oxygen and nutrients aren't getting to where they need to be and when this happens, a person will at first not feel well, then may feel pain, and then may even get worse, creating disease.  

Qigong can be an affective tool to help get and keep your Qi flowing and get you back to being and feeling balanced.  Qigong can even assist a person with chronic emotional problems, but chronic emotional problems will require more than just one Qigong treatment.  It will also require multiple treatments, engaging in Qigong exercises, and learning some new behaviors.  The goal will be to help prevent that stagnation from continually being recreated by that emotion and learning how to get the body back into harmony and balance. 

Emotions Can Stagnate Qi Energy Flow

Moving Subtle Energy (Qi) Can Create Some Amazing Sensory Experiences

During my first acupuncture experience, I had a rather incredible experience.  I could “see” people in the room and felt like I was in an huge operating theater with many people looking and observing me.  I reported this to the Acupuncturist.  She quietly left the room, returned, and that sensation of being the center of attention ended. She shared how she usually asks for help before a treatment but didn't expect a crowd.  She then began my treatment.

In subsequent acupuncture treatments I have had other sensory experiences, too.  For example, after the first acupuncture needle was placed, I started to feel liquid starting to move and drip in the back of my throat.  I could feel a "drip, drip, drip" creating the need to swallow.  Since this sensation started every time the first acupuncture needle was place in my body, I started to realize this sensation was the subtle energy (Qi, Chi, Chee) starting to move and flow.  This was a physical sensation to a subtle energy experience; the placement of an acupuncture needle.

At other times during an acupuncture treatment, I would see different colors dancing and moving in my mind.  Other times, I saw images and events playing out, almost as if I were in a waking dream.  Other times I felt as if I were in a conversation with an unseen person.  There was even an episode when I saw my dead parents and grandparents, and eventually saw an old Chinese Master assisting with my treatment.

Acupuncture turned into an amazing adventure for me and I wanted to know WHY I was having these incredible experiences during a medical procedure.    

I enrolled in Chinese Medicine school and learned there are additional types of energy work available in addition to acupuncture that works on the subtle energy of the body; Qi-Gong and Tui Na.  I learned these treatments also created similar sensations and experiences, too. The sensations didn't just happen with acupuncture.

So why do these sensory experiences happen with energy work?  Why do they happen during Acupuncture, Qi-gong, or Tui Na?

What I have concluded is because energy work actually does move the subtle energy within the body.  When energy moves, it will have an affect on the physical body. Moving energy creates and causes some type of physical reaction. Remember physics?  Every action creates a reaction.  There is always a cause and an affect.  For example, subtle energy moves blood. Blood moves and engages the nerves and neurons in the body. Nerves and neurons trigger and create sensations. Sensations become interpreted by the mind and when all five senses in the body becoming engaged, well, that will create quite the physical sensation and experience.

Sometimes a person will see things, feel things, hear things, or even taste or smell things during an energy work treatment.  I have concluded that when a person has these sensations during a treatment, it is a good sign.  It means the subtle energy is moving.  It means blood is moving.  It means nerves are engaged.  It also means the person is sensitive enough to pick up and experience what is going on in and around their body.  They are tuned in.  

Energy work uses and directs subtle energy to help balance the body, mind, and spirit, and this may produce some fabulous and amazing sensations!  It is VERY cool!  

Moving Subtle Energy (Qi) Can Create Some Amazing Sensory Experiences