Our Wellness Practice

Energy medicine can be defined as a practice or strategy that supports the body’s own energies to heal itself. Energy medicine is facilitated by the combined intentions and actions of the energy practitioner and the client.

According to Donna Eden (Energy Medicine, 1998), “your body was designed to heal itself.” Unfortunately we live in a world of electromagnetic energy—wireless systems abound—that interferes with the body’s natural capacity to maintain health. Examples of Energy Medicine Modalities:

• Acupressure massage (Jin shin do)
• Acupuncture
• Chakra Balancing
• Color-Laser Acu- “puncture”
• Cranial Sacral Therapy
• Cupping
• Emotional Freedom Technique
• Guided Imagery
• Hypnotherapy
• Specialized Massage
• Other techniques based on the teachings of Donna Eden
• Polarity Therapy
• Pranic Healing
• Quantum Touch
• Reiki
• Thai Massage
• Yoga Therapy
• Zero-Balancing

Treatments are aimed at soothing the symptoms as well as getting to the root of the problem.

The visit would begin with a history of the current problem or a discussion of the goals you might have for wellness. Then you might receive a combination of energy bodywork and counseling. The bodywork may occur in a chair or massage table.

Usually, the only requirement is that you be comfortably dressed. A later session might focus on developing a plan for nutrition, modified exercise, nutritional supplements, and relaxation can help your body reach a desirable level of functioning from any starting point.

Techniques, such as acupressure and Reiki, energize the body, while health education/counseling help you to maintain the benefits of the treatment over time.

Invisible fields of energy surround and interpenetrate the human body, even though it has not been unequivocally proven to the medical community. These fields exist according to Chinese medicine as Qi (chi) or Prana in Ayurvedic medicine.

In western cultures we have referred to this as “energy” or “vibes”. The practitioner takes that energy and creates a vibrational environment so that the person getting worked on can heal his/herself. The practitioner channels the energy from the environment and holds it in proximity to the client’s field of energy.

Somehow in this process, the body intelligence seeks to meet or “entrain” that healing energy. You might feel this as heat or a fine vibration.

The practitioner also benefits from this work and therefore “healing” is always a mutual process.

Energy bodywork often releases emotions that have been blocked as a protective mechanism of the body. Emotions are bio-chemicals that are carried through the blood stream. When we are frustrated or grieving, we tense our muscles. The body holds emotions like it holds muscle tension. Once the emotion is recognized and released, the chronic pain in the area is often released as well.

These are 1-on-1 or group approaches to getting to the foundation of all health problems—emotions, thoughts, and attitudes. While all disease causes are multi-causal (genetics, personality, nutrition etc.), our emotions, thoughts, and attitudes are the context for either improving for worsening our health. Approaches to Mind/Body integration include:

• Life Coaching
• Spiritual Counseling
• Health Education

In many ways, life coaching is actually for the successful.

There is a distinct difference between life coaching, therapy and counseling. Coaching is not about digging into your past. It is about taking stock of where you are, where you want to be and to plan and take action to get there.

One thing to note, though, is that you must be ready to work with the coach. If you are not able to have an open discussion with the coach, it will be difficult for the coach to help.

If you manage to develop the plan, but do not take action, it will also be a waste.

It is often important to select the coach that fits your style but still challenges you. Besides having the skills to draw out what is it you want to achieve, the coach must also have relevant subject matter knowledge and experience to help you to decide and also give guidance.

Chemistry with the coach is important. If the two of you just cannot connect, it is better to switch to someone with whom you can. Each life coach will have a different life coaching technique and some may suit you better than others.

The body, mind and spirit are completely interconnected in the person that is You.

The mind/brain often work in tandem to maintain the status quo. The body holds onto unexpressed emotions as blocked energy that can cause physical pain. Over time, the mind thinks that pain is “normal”. Change can be seen as unsafe. However, unchecked pain tends to increase over time, and this may really be a message from the higher self (spirit) that change is needed.

The higher wisdom within you is accessed in this process. Working with the body/mind/spirit can guide you to wellness. When change is blocked in the mind, you work with the body. When the body ‘s dysfunction blocks change, then you work with the mind/spirit.

Spiritual counseling is a process of helping you to find the deeper meaning and purpose of true health:

• Developing an awareness of feelings that might have been suppressed and learning to feel them in a way that releases the blocked energy
• Discerning what is real and what is of the mind—the imagined future or the remembered past.
• Developing an understanding of the effects of your past actions that now present as challenges in your life
• Discovering the images we have built up (to prevent hurt and suffering) but can no longer maintain
• Discovering the misconceptions that you held as a child that continue to affect your life as an adult
• Connecting to the Divine wisdom of your higher consciousness
• Developing a positive intention coupled with an openness to change in your life.

Sessions may be alternated with or combined with Emotional Freedom Technique, bodywork, yoga, meditation, or self-hypnosis.

Health Education, is basically teaching and counseling on healthy living.

Accurate knowledge is the first step to empowerment. Knowledge of how the body works, how to improve its functions, and what it needs are basic tools for wellness. It also addresses alcohol and drug misuse, smoking, and other threats to health.

The internet brings us more information than we will be able to use. Expert health educators can help you judge the quality of the information that “washes up” on the “shores” of your computer. Knowledge also helps you become more of a co-captain with your physician or health practitioner.

The World Health Organization has issued a report entitled “Acupuncture: Review and Analysis of Reports on Controlled Clinical Trials”, listing four categories of diseases and disorders for which acupuncture may be considered to be effective. It must be emphasized that the list of diseases, symptoms or conditions covered in the publication is based on collected reports of clinical trials and, so, can serve only as a reference. Only national health authorities can determine the diseases, symptoms and conditions for which acupuncture treatment can be recommended.

The following is an abbreviated list.

Diseases, Symptoms or Conditions for Which Acupuncture has been Proven Through Controlled Trials to be an Effective Treatment:

Adverse reactions to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy, allergic rhinitis (including hay fever), biliary colic, depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke), acute bacillary dysentery, primary dysmenorrhoea, acute epigastralgia (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic gastritis, and gastrospasm), facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders), headache, essential hypertension, primary hypotension, induction of labour, knee pain, leukopenia, low back pain, correction of malposition of fetus, morning sickness, nausea and vomiting, neck pain, pain in dentistry (including dental pain and temporomandibular dysfunction), periarthritis of shoulder, postoperative pain, renal colic, rheumatoid arthritis, sciatica, sprain, stroke, tennis elbow.

The attitude of the wellness team at Mana Kai Wellness is that all recommendations made by members of the wellness team are merely suggestions made to the client based on the information received from the client as well as observations made by the practitioner. It is completely up to the client to proceed with the recommendations and evaluate their effectiveness on their overall health, or not. The client is always encouraged to consult with their physician and/or research the complementary treatments before trying them. It is always preferable that any and all appropriate diagnostic testing be supervised by your physician and the results reviewed before trying complementary therapies for the first time.

There are no explicit or implicit guarantees made by the Mana Kai Wellness team that the outcome desired by the client will be the outcome delivered by the recommended treatment. The overall goal in holistic therapy is the collaboration of the client and caregiver in the data collection, planning, intervention and evaluation of care. The client is the ultimate authority in that collaboration.

Holistic care is based on scientifically studied concepts as well as traditional treatments that have not been proven in a laboratory setting. The client has the responsibility to inform their physician of all complementary and alternative health treatments they are receiving.