Energy Healing 101 - introduction

Welcome to Energy Healing 101, a new monthly blog series by Mary Von Ohlen of Resonating Wellness LLC (created by request and published originally for Our Town Crier in Westport, CT).   

It is my passion to connect people to holistic resources for the improvement of their wellbeing – physically, emotionally and spiritually.  Typically this begins with education, as you may not know what you don’t know.  Awareness is always the first step in any worthwhile process.  My goal is to help more of our community become aware of the incredible resources for healing, wellbeing and empowerment that exist right in our backyard.  What you choose to do with that information is entirely up to you! 

By now I imagine you have heard of this rapidly growing field referred to as Energy Medicine, which Dr. Mehmet Oz famously declared as “the future of medicine.”  Despite its origins dating back to ancient civilizations and its millennia of success in certain cultures, methods of energy healing have also met much resistance in other areas, thus hindering its progression into mainstream use worldwide.

Up until fairly recently in our western society, typically individuals have tended to seek out “alternative medicine” or “energy healing” after conventional medicine has failed them and they don’t know where else to turn.  People tend to fear or doubt that which is unfamiliar, and which they do not understand.  (Note: medical doctors included!)  Thus, most people would only reluctantly give an “alternative” therapy a try out of desperation.  But times are changing! 

After longstanding marginalization by the medical field, energy medicine is moving mainstream even in medical institutions today.  Just look at the many hospitals in Connecticut alone that have begun to integrate energy medicine into their offerings!  Yale, Danbury, Griffin, Hartford, Norwalk… the list goes on.  Data from the National Institutes of Health shows an 80% increase since 2000 in funding for research projects via its National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.  In fact, Yale University recently received $1million for four research projects regarding alternative healing methods.  

Despite these large shifts occurring, plenty of skeptics remain.  There seems to be a gap where we need to bridge the growing body of evidence and science behind the field of energy healing to the general population who have not yet experienced it firsthand and need a better understanding of energy medicine in order to feel comfortable with it. 

There also can be a learning curve for the many people who have already experienced some form of “alternative” modality.  After having reaped the benefits, they often want to enthusiastically refer their friends and loved ones yet find themselves at a loss reaching for words to explain the process that brought about their own results.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard clients say something like, “I want to send my friend to you but realized I’m not confident in explaining how this works; I just know it does!” 

Perhaps you are one of the people who have received the advantages of some form of energy healing and utterly trust it.  If I asked you to explain energy and the role it plays in our health, could you?  As a practitioner deeply involved in this field, it can be challenging at times even for me to explain how it works.  That is not because it is “woo woo”, it’s just that the science can be difficult to articulate in the brief amount of time a newbie may give you the opportunity to explain.

“woo woo”:  extraordinary beliefs for which it is felt there is insufficient extraordinary evidence.

scientific:  based on or characterized by the methods and principles of science.

You see, energy exists and operates based on simple laws of science yet can seem profoundly complex to most of us laypeople who are not physicists or electrical engineers.  My objective in this series of articles is to present energy healing concepts and examples in a clear manner.  An understanding of energy is more readily grasped through experience than by reading about it, however we can begin to open you to this world by explaining some basic concepts. 

Future articles will cover various aspects of energy healing, how it works, effective modalities in our area, and real examples of healing experienced by members of our community. 

My intention is that as more information on energy healing is shared, more people will embrace what this field offers: natural access to physical wellbeing, emotional freedom, and spiritual growth.  And instead of being the last ditch effort of the downtrodden, energy healing may be the first line for anyone seeking greater health and happiness.