The Eastern Science of Self-Healing

What I love about the Eastern sciences of self-healing is their comprehensive approach to managing and understanding the human experience. For example, in our accepted paradigm here in the West, “health” is considered the absence of illness. I cannot even begin to express how myopically offensive that is from an Eastern point-of-view. In reality, illness starts out very slowly, gradually moving out of balance with subtle energies that don’t even register on most people’s awareness radar. From an Indian, Tibetan Ayurvedic and Chinese Medicine paradigm everything is energy in motion or in stasis. These sciences specialize in examining how the subtle energies that organize your body’s constitution are balanced:

- What are the qualities of these energies?

- What is the configuration of these energies?

- What and where are the energies in excesses and what and where are the energies in deficiencies?

- What and where are these energies too dry, too hot, too wet or too cold?

Already you can see the conversation is straying from the familiar allopathic confines of a numbers game: weight, blood pressure, cholesterol count, etc.

Very simply stated, the Eastern self-healing sciences see illness as having its origins in an energetic make-up that could pre-exist for years before any actual physical symptoms arise. From an Eastern understanding there are subtle energies that make up any living being, be it the planet itself, a vegetable, an animal, or a human are essential to our health and wellbeing. In Ayurveda these energies are: Air and Space (Vata), Fire and Water (Pitta), and Earth and Water (Kapha); in Chinese Medicine they are Earth, Water, Metal, Wood and Fire. Every living thing - animal, vegetable or mineral - has an energetic balance that is appropriate for its constitutional make up. This means that some people have more Fire energy than others; some people have more Earth energy than others; still others may have more Water or Air than others. Each living thing has a mixture of these energies that make up life in a unique formula that balances and supports that life form. In the same way that no two people have the same fingerprints, every living thing is organized with an energy blueprint specific to their exclusive individual existence.

Let’s build on this idea of energies coming together in a specific manner that determines your unique life construction. The beginning of illness, again from an Eastern perspective, is where one or more of these energies that make up your life experience begins to accumulate in excess. A Fire predominate person would have the following proclivities: you eat lots of hot spicy foods; you love your beer and/or wine; you have a tendency to express yourself on the critical, impatient, irritated end of the spectrum; you like to wear a lot of red, orange and yellow colors. In order for you to be happy, things need to be done in a certain way: in a clearly defined time frame; life better be organized in a specific manner; you are perfection oriented and have a keenly honed eye for detail that must be met or there will be no rest. All these things provoke the Fire element in your unique energy constitution. If this Fire energy is continually stoked, provoked and generally inflamed, the subtle energy of Fire will grow and grow and grow. Fire energy is expansive in nature, so it will steadily accumulate and accumulate until there is an excess of Fire energy in your body’s constitution that cannot be maintained within the boundaries of balance and good health. (There may be more than just Fire involved too. For example, it may be Fire and excess Air energy that are building dramatically like a brush fire blown out of control by a strong wind.) They have now reached a level of aggravation to the body’s system and delicate point of energy balance. Bear in mind all this may be happening while the individual is still relatively symptom free. This is the time so many people go to their doctor feeling/knowing something is not right, but the doctor cannot find anything amiss or diagnose a pathology. “Sorry, your tests came back negative. There is nothing wrong with you.”

Once the out of balance energy or energies reach a level of profound and excessive accumulation, an aggravation flashpoint will occur. It is at this late stage that measurable symptoms will begin to arise. Since the imbalance has become a full-blown malady, allopathic test results will come back positive and Western medicine can make a diagnosis. Better late than never I guess. The obvious advantage goes to the system of self-healing that can detect and respond to the energy or energies while still in accumulation mode - long before it reaches critical mass and becomes a health crisis. However, accumulation and aggravation are only part of the overall picture that addresses balance, illness and wellbeing.

Once an accumulated energy (or energies) moves into aggravation mode, the excess aggravated energy will then go into the body’s circulatory system and cycle around and around the body’s overall structure. This empowered accumulated/aggravated energy circulates until it finds a “defective” space within the body. The accumulated/aggravated energy will then deposit itself in the “defective” space. This is what is known in the Eastern systems of self-healing as the manifestation of a full-scale disease. So this raises the $64 million dollar question.... what exactly is a “defective” space, and if you did not have any “defective” spaces would there be any inner fertile ground for disease to take root?

Let’s take these on one at a time. What is a defective space? This is where the mind/body connection comes to the forefront of discussion. A defective space starts in the mind; it is created by what you give your attention to and the emotions that arise as a result of that awareness. These Eastern systems of self-healing define you as a spiritual being having a human experience. They see you as inseparable from a force of consciousness that existed before you came here and took a body, and will continue to exist as consciousness after the body falls away. They do not take your spiritual identity out of the health equation. Western medicine, on the other hand, at no time even acknowledges you as anything other than a mechanism. They fail to address the mind, body, spirit connection that exists.

Socrates said it best: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” The purpose of all created life is to experience the truth of who we are, and to honestly examine what we are and why we are here. When you define yourself as inferior, less than, not good enough, unlovable, worthless, disposable or powerless, you create a “defective” space in the mind/body energy configuration. The reason for this is because those thoughts are in direct opposition to who and what you are. They create a relationship of dis-ease between you and the truth that promotes balance and sets you free. Nature does not like a vacuum so when you give your power away and create a “defective” space, the pain, trauma and toxic energy that pushed you out, moves in.

When you love, accept and forgive yourself for the learning experiences you agreed to go through and take on, in order to become self-realizing and self-aware, you heal these “defective” spaces in the mind and body. Self-loathing, self-judgment and criticism erode inner integrity and personal balance until it leaves a “defective” space in its wake.

There is nothing stronger than a fully realized being. Disease is a measurable, tangible state of being dis-at-ease with your conscious knowledge of yourself, and the symptoms of that dis-at-ease state will ultimately manifest physically. Obviously everyone has entertained “defective” thinking to varying degrees. The objective of life in this planet Earth classroom is to grow beyond the habit of giving attention to “defective” consciousness and return to a place of self-acceptance, ease and wholeness. So to answer that $64 million dollar question: a “defective” space starts in the mind with attention given to an inner narrative based on a lack of self-acceptance, and then spreads to the body. If you did not have any “defective” spaces you would be immune to illness and disease… you also most likely would not be in the planet Earth classroom as there would be nothing for you to learn here. That is why everyone here has to learn to grow beyond toxic thinking and has experienced illness to some degree.

Even if you disagree with the fundamental concepts and principles shared in this piece, let me ask you something. What do you have to lose by accepting yourself? How is the quality of your life compromised in the least by extending love, compassion and forgiveness to yourself?

But you do not have to take my word for it. Examine your own life. When you are comfortable, relaxed and confident within your own skin... don’t you automatically feel better? At the end of the day you may not have full control over the amount of radiation, GMOs, or environmental toxins you have been habitually exposed to, but you do have the last word on how you see yourself, how you define yourself, how feel about yourself and what you tell yourself. And if the only thing you have any real control over is limiting the amount of defective space in your own mind so that you feel better about yourself and your life at the end of the day... what is that worth to you?

Vaishali is the author of "You Are What You Love" and "Wisdom Rising" learned to transform her life after she had two terminal disease diagnoses. She is completely recovered and shares her wisdom .She is a health a columnist for the Huffington Post and an international health and wellness speaker who has appeared on The Dr. Oz Radio Show and Oprah.com. Join Vaishali June 17-19^th at The Omega Institute http://eomega.org/omega/workshops/42497d6c3932bc64c0dde41525b4b105/  To learn more visit@ www.purplev.com/mediakit or email press@purplev.com