Energy Medicine: The Future (and Past) of Health CareWhen I look back, becoming a holistic health expert & coach was foreshadowed by a period of time when I had moved back to Indiana briefly and was so bored I decided to renew my library card and escape into books.
Once an avid fiction reader, I found myself instead drawn to books on politics, economics, and health. And it seemed that information on health just flowed effortlessly to me. Prior to 2003, I had never paid much attention to my health. I was young and fit and had lots of energy so I didn’t realize at the time that my habits were setting me up for thyroid disease. I didn’t even know I had a thyroid!
And, although I loved to cook and learned about healthier versions of food and read about wellness topics in mags like Cooking Light, Gourmet, & Bon Appetit, the info coming to me was different…..unconventional….radical even.
One day, my husband came home with a book he wanted to give his father called, “Never Be Sick Again.” He flipped through it before giving it to his dad and said, “There’s some fascinating stuff in here. You should read it.” I did. And it blew me away. This true story chronicles the journey of a man who was given hours to live as he sat in a hospital when his brother came in, snuck high levels of Vitamin C into his system and helped him free his body of its toxic burden. The man went on to live many happy years.
Next came, “Grow Younger, Live Longer” by Deepak Chopra which opened my eyes to an entirely new concept of medicine, Ayurveda and the idea that your body can regenerate and repair itself naturally.
But the book that blew open the doors was Eckhart Tolle’s, Power of Now. I honestly don’t remember much of the book but what stuck with me was a couple of pages he wrote about your energy body. Huh? In essence, Eckhart provides a little exercise you can do to scan your body each evening that will build up your strength and keep illness at bay. My energy body? I had one of those?
I was intrigued and wanted to see if I could feel what Eckhart was describing. As I lay in my bed, I focused and tried to perceive the energy around me…and it worked! I could feel it and I could feel where it was blocked. It was such an astonishing discovery, I dove into learning all I could about energy medicine. It was clear I had tapped into a vital connection between my body and its source. Since that day, I have researched, sought out and used energy to reverse disease in my own body.
What is energy medicine?
Energy medicine sounds crazy, right? I know. I thought so too. But it comes in forms that are becoming more commonplace and even covered by health insurance here or there like acupuncture, Reiki, Tai Chi and more. Even Dr. Oz stated a few years ago that energy medicine is the future of health care.
According to EnergyMed.org, energy medicine is “both a complement to other approaches to medical care and a complete system for self-care and self-help. It can address physical illness and emotional or mental disorders, and can also promote high-level wellness and peak performance.”
It’s a powerful, ancient way of looking at health and the human body, focusing on healing or restoring the energy within your body that may have become disrupted, weak or out of balance. And the techniques for addressing these problems include yoga, acupuncture and acupressure, kinesiology, qi gong, Tai Chi, Reiki, EFT and more.
Both the Indian medical tradition of Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine place equal emphasis on the mind, body, and spirit when treating ailments—unlike our Western medical system. Yet even Western medicine acknowledges that the human body as a distinct electromagnetic energy field, signaling that energy medicine may be the wave of the future here, even as it’s an ancient tradition elsewhere in the world.
Energy medicine for thyroid disorders
If you’re dealing with thyroid or autoimmune disease, chances are you’ve run smack into the limits of Western medicine. Don’t get me wrong: Western medicine can accomplish miraculous things and I definitely wouldn’t want to do without it. What I do want is for our doctors and medical schools to wake up to the fact that Western medicine isn’t all there is.
Complementary healing techniques that address the energy body can be powerful tools for reversing thyroid, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. I have personally used acupuncture, Reiki, craniosacral therapies, kirtan, qi gong, and others to great success, and my clients have had success with these as well. Incorporating a few of these techniques will balance your personal healing program and likely speed up the process of reversing your disease. In fact, I devote an entire section of The Radical TLC: Symptom Relief Playbook to alternative and complementary healing techniques, and they’re a major part of the healing protocols I outline in The Radical TLC Solution Home Healing Program.
The good news is that as some of these treatments are becoming more mainstream, they may be covered by your insurance, so it’s worth it to check it out. I know investing financially in our health can be tough sometimes, but many alternative healing practitioners work on a sliding scale or are open to trading their services if you have something to trade.
Because much of this work involves the energy body, it sometimes takes trying out a few different practitioners to find the one that clicks. Just like with finding the right doctor, don’t be afraid to interview different practitioners and try a few until you find the right fit.
My journey to health taught me that we can’t look to healing a single symptom or addressing one discrete problem when trying to address disease—especially thyroid, autoimmune, and inflammatory disorders, that are so integrally linked with so many processes in our bodies. The only way to truly love our bodies back to health is to address the problems holistically, and for me and for my clients, that includes not just the physical body, but the energetic body as well.
I’d love to hear about your experiences with energy medicine in the comments below.
Whether you’re ready to dive into energy medicine or not, I provide a ton of resources on healing your thyroid naturally, including:
- Our totally free Thyroid Healing Type Assessment, Report and Coaching Sessions
- Right here on my blog, where I talk about what’s worked best for me and my clients, as well as the latest research and resources I come across. You can subscribe to get new blog posts delivered right to your email by signing up on the righthand side of the page.
- My book, Healing Hashimoto’s Naturally — part memoir, part instruction manual for how I personally healed my Hashimoto’s disease.
- My exclusive free 6 Thyroid Myths That Can Keep You From Healing workshop — with info on the comprehensive Thyroid Fix in 6 program, which walks you through, step-by-step, the exact actions you need to take to heal your thyroid and get your life back! We’ve seen hundreds of participants in the Thyroid Fix in 6 avoid, decrease, or even eliminate the need need for thyroid medications.
- The incredible Your Best Thyroid Life Video Bundle, in which I personally invited 27 of the world’s top health experts to share their best tips for living with and healing thyroid disease.
Let’s love our bodies back to holistic health that includes not just the physical body, but the energetic body as well.
Jen Wittman is a Certified Holistic Health Expert, Chef, Author & Vitality Coach, who teaches women how to reverse thyroid and autoimmune conditions naturally. She’s helped hundreds of women decrease (or even eliminate) their thyroid medications and has helped others stay off thyroid medication entirely.
Through her free Thyroid Healing Type Assessment, Jen teaches easy and simple steps to thyroid healing that can fit into your busy day. She also provides print outs to bring to your next doctor’s appointment so you can get the support and respect you deserve.