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.
