Energize and Detox

Energize and Detox tools

Introduction

Vibrational modalities such as color, sound, geometry, flower essences, etc., are valuable catalysts for enabling change in a graceful way. But they alone are not enough to sustain the momentum. One needs more energy to fuel the transformation process. And it is necessary to deconstruct and detox the old structures (physical, emotional, mental) that formed the framework for the previous status quo. This page covers some of each of these elements that I have found useful with both myself and clients to accelerate change.

Guidance System tools

Having a way to test these items yourself to see which are most beneficial and to measure how often and how much of them to use -- is highly useful. If you are a practitioner, you likely already know how to do this. But I think in the coming era where people take more responsibility for their own health choices, many will become proficient in using their own internal guidance system on a regular basis. The most common ways to do this are with self muscle testing (also called "applied kinesiology"), or with dowsing.

Letter to Robin A mini-course in pendulum dowsing, by Walt Woods, one of the most respected dowsers and teachers in the U.S., and past president of the ASD.

Perelandra Center for Nature Research kinesiology testing tutorial.

The key in using any of these techniques is to just start using them on a regular basis several times per day. Ask simple questions such as which type of vitamins or food are most beneficial. Then you don't have to worry that you are getting 100% "correct" answers. It gives you some breathing room to practice. And within a week or two, you will get indications and synchronicities that you are on the right track and that your skill level is indeed increasing.

Energize

Both the Energize and Detox sections of this page are equally important. You can't do one without the other, it won't work. For example, if you use a tool to open up more chi flow in your body, it will automatically trigger increased detox from those areas that now have more life energy. If you don't have the means to flush the toxins (e.g. physical or emotional) that can be released, you will experience discomfort. This is sometimes called a "healing crisis" or "herxheimer reaction" in the rare cases that it is strong enough. You do not have to experience extremes like this because the detox tools exist.

Conversely, use of any of the detox methods listed below, will also also increase chi flow. It is like these two form a synergistic relationship, or form rungs of an ascending ladder.

Enlivening the Connective Tissue Matrix

Dr. James Oschman in his articles and book Energy Medicine, the Scientific Basis -- writes about the Connective Tissue Matrix [1] [2] [3]. Oschman also calls this "the living matrix".

The matrix: There is a web or matrix of collagen connective tissue (fascia) that is completely interwoven with all the body cells, tissues, and organs. Cells are not "bags of fluid", but instead contain intelligent cytoskeletons in both the cell body and nucleus that are woven into this whole body web. Inter and intracellular processes are facilitated by this network which moves, positions and transports various cell components.

The network: The web provides not only physical stability and structure, but also is believed to be the ground matrix for a high speed signaling network using biophotons and electromagnetics transmitted by liquid crystaline structures in the collagen. These structures actually form the basis and wiring for what is known as the Chinese acupuncture point and meridian system. For example, it is well known that the electrical resistance between classically established acupuncture points is less than that of surrounding skin areas. This living matrix then is channeling information as well as "chi" or lifeforce.

Age related changes: In the natural progress of time, collagen fibers and webs develop tangles and less orderly structure. This impedes the flow of chi and information throughout the body. In the last ten years or so, some dramatic new techniques have been discovered that break through the tangles and allow the fascia to reorganize itself and reopen chi to flow at full volume again. These techniques are Self Myofascial Release and the Meridian Flexibility System, discussed further below. The section following that then mentions Qigong, which circulates chi through the meridian system. The analogy would be in "cleaning out the pipes" of the meridian system, and then turning on a powerful pump to flow more energy through the pipes (qigong).

Self Myofascial Release (SMR)

The first of these techniques we will mention is Myofascial Release and more importantly, Self Myofascial Release. With the solo use of foam rollers, you can apply steady and adjustable pressure along all the major muscle groups of the torso, legs and arms. When you contact a "knot" of myofascial constriction, the intensity of the pressure sensation will rise sharply. But the goal here is not to "push" your way through it, but rather to hang out there at the pressure point until the myofascia reorganize and break the tangled bonds. This typically happens within about 30 seconds or less, at which point you can continue rolling until encountering another adhesion. So a typical speed at which you are rolling down the muscle is more like one inch per second or less. This allows the roller to sink deeply into the fascia and contact the knots long enough to reorganize them.

Since the body acupoint meridians have a major portion of their circuitry paths in the legs and arms, this ability to "open the gates" and pipes (as it were), results in a large increase in chi flow. The reorganization of the tangled fascia does not occur all at once in one session, obviously. But over a short period of time of using the roller, you will achieve a rewiring of not only your muscle systems, but the organs (all your organs), which have unique associations with each meridian.

Here is an excellent do-it-yourself guide on self myofascial release using the rollers, by Curb Ivanic. Many people have seen the white six inch diameter rollers, and that is what is used in illustrating the guide. However these white rollers have a very weak type of foam construction and break down quickly. They might be suitable for those just starting out with the rolling, but very soon, within a week or so -- you will have outgrown them as far as making continued progress at deeper levels.

If you go to the initial foam roller page link at the top of this section, you will see two other types of foam roller. These are the same dimensions as the white (cylinder 6" diameter by 3 feet long), but are made of "closed cell" foam that lasts much longer. The black roller has the highest density (hardness) and is the one I would recommend for the strongest benefit from the self myofascial release. However it may be too hard for beginners. In which case the green "Pro-Roller" is intermediate in density between the black and white foams. So you might start out with the green and eventually move up to the black. Or start with the white if you want to start out very gently and gradually.

Bob Cooley's Meridian Flexibility System

Another powerful technique for opening energy flow in the meridian system was developed by Bob Cooley. This is truely remarkable and Cooley has an established track record of enabling Olympic level performance from the athletes that he works with. [ Dara Torres at 41 is likely to make the 2008 U.S. Olympic swim team after setting other records last year. This is unheard of when most olympic athletes are 18-22 years old. Dara credits Cooley's system with these achievements. ]

The basic idea is that you stretch each muscle system (and meridian) in the body. But the stretching is unique in that the muscle is being contracted while it is being stretched. Illustrated examples. So in terms of Oschman's "living matrix" model, this is pulling the kinks out of the twisted pipes. Simple strength building exercises don't do this, because they are missing the stretch component. Conversely, stretching techniques such as yoga that put all their efforts at the endpoint of the stretch (and no contraction), also do not perform optimally because they are stretching mostly tendons and ligaments . Cooley has indeed hit upon a simple, but profound formula that is enabling deep transformation in many people. Because each organ and meridian in traditional Chinese medicine, also has a corresponding psychological quality (which can be balanced or out of balance with the whole system) -- Meridian Stretching remodels (or "upgrades" as Cooley says) the entire body-mind interlinked whole.

Once you see how easy these stretches are to do yourself, and feel the effects of them on your energy and outlook, you will be sold. There is both a book and a DVD available. The book is very thorough, but it helps to see a few of the stretches in action before you can dive into the book. I havent personally seen the DVD, but it is an alternative if you don't have an instructor giving classes local to your area.

Luther Cowden, one of the instructors, has put together an online archive of most of the stretching positions. You can see some samples here, and by becoming a member of his website ($10 lifetime membership!), gain access to the full illustrated position training archive. This is a good resource after you have taken a class or seen the video. I understand Luther may have some YouTube videos available this summer 2008.

For those of you in Northern California, Tom Longo has his studio Stretchworks in Redwood City, and is codirector with Bob Cooley of the national training organization. Tom is excellent and was my introduction to the system.

Qigong

Qigong is one of the best energizing tools for increasing the flow of life-energy and accelerating transformative forces. You can learn how to do it and start benefiting in less than an hour in the link shown here. This is a qigong DVD taught by Jeff Primack, one of the best qigong teachers I have encountered in 15 years of qigong study. The qigong Level 1 set on the video is only about 40 minutes long. Jeff shows each move with computer generated animations that depict the flow of chi between the hands and arms. This makes it very easy to both see and feel what is going on during the practice. As you feel the flow of chi more, it will in turn open more meridians and circuits for chi to flow.

Another important aspect of qigong is the nature reconnection it enhances. It only takes a few times of watching the video until you can remember the basics on your own. If you try practicing outside, barefoot in the grass, you will notice a whole new dimension of the chi flow. There are energy, intelligence and chi circuits that want to open up between earth and ourselves. You will feel this as heat in the bottoms of your feet, traveling up your legs and into the rest of your body. It is quite delightful. But more importantly, it is allowing deeper communications between your intuition and that of nature and the planet. Crucial for the changes that want to happen for a sustainable and heart-intelligence future. Don't miss this opportunity to "plug into" perhaps the ultimate power source and earth mother.

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One other form of qigong I have found helpful is called Golden Shield Qigong. This comes from the martial arts traditions used in the Shaolin temples in China. So it is less accessible than the normal "internal" style qigong mentioned above. It involves a training period of six to eight months where all the organs in the abdomen are brought to a higher level of functioning. This is done by a series of progressive percussion actions on the abdomen. Initially just using your own hands, and then with the aid of a partner. This is quite a remarkable system, but it is only taught in a few places in the U.S. I trained here in California with Darren Huckle, L.Ac. and master herbalist. An amazing experience.

Mitochondrial rejuvenation and DNA repair

Dr. Bruce Ames at University of California (Berkeley) discovered a synergistic combination of Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) and Acetyl L-Carnitine (ALCAR), that enhances energy by rejuvenating the mitochondria and repairing their DNA. Ames is a famous scientist and has quite a track record of discoveries.

These supplements are active taken alone, but together they spark a repair process. ALA is an anti oxidant that actually prolongs the life of Vitamin C in your system, and ALCAR is an amino acid that enhances cognition and neuronal function.

Typical ratio is 1 or 2 parts ALA to 5 parts ALCAR, e.g. 100mg or 200mg ALA and 500mg ALCAR. The exact ratio is not as important as just having the two simultaneously present. Mitochondria are the energy factories (organelles) that power each cell in your body.

Here are the reports on Ames' research at the National Academy of Sciences. And this is Ames' page at UC Berkeley. Popular article on the Ames team discovery... "With the two supplements together, these old rats got up and did the Macarena," said Ames, also a researcher at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI). "The brain looks better, they are full of energy - everything we looked at looks more like a young animal."

This company, Juvenon, licensed the patent from UC Berkeley and is producing a combined tablet with both ALA and ALCAR. But it is not necessary to pay that kind of premium.

Here is the best price and quality I've found on web searches, from iherb.com. The ALCAR is from Sigma Tau in Italy, one of the premier manufacturers of ALCAR. The 588 mg ALCAR, and this is the 300mg ALA I use (2 * 150mg = 300mg). The discount and large quantities, 120 each make for the best price. And 300mg ALA + 588 ALCAR is a good ratio. 100mg ALA would not be enough.

Adaptogens

Adaptogens are natural herb products that increase the body's resistance to stress, anxiety and fatigue. There is a wide range of these, with many receiving considerable attention from researchers. Condtions of prolonged stress can produce what is being called adrenal fatigue or exhaustion. In Chinese Medicine this sometimes called Kidney Yang Deficiency. Some that I like are:

Maca root from Maca Magic. This is actually capable of rebuilding Kidney Yang.
Shen tonics utilizing Reishi mushroom are not only adaptogenic on physical / energetic levels, but they also help produce better equanimity and heart-intellect coordination.
Ashwagandha is an ayurvedic adaptogen.

Some other energizers

Here are some others in no particular order:

any creative expression activity: movement, singing, writing, drawing, playing...
Wisdom Circles that create an environment for growing heart-intelligence in small community
quality quiet time in nature
Angelspeake, a very simple journaling process for opening a pathway for intuitive and spiritual guidance to be heard.
kettlebells, a relatively new tool from Russia for strength and endurance training
aerobic exercise, yoga, pilates, rebounder (see below in detox), ...
acupoint energizing, using left and right spiral molecules. Lifewave is one example of this, but you can do this at no cost by making your own "patches" using L-Carnitine and fructose.
the Gemisphere energetic pharmacy using necklaces of minerals and gemstones.

Detox

Below are detoxification technologies which are particularly helpful in synergy with the energizing tools.

Ergotropic De-tuning -- heart-coherence mindfulness meditation

Ergotropic tuning is an adaptive process that occurs over times of high stress. The hypothalamus gets more and more agitated and places the whole body in sympathetic dominant mode increasing amounts of time. It makes evolutionary sense that if it's tiger feeding season, to be hypervigilant, but not in modern times.

The only known antidote for this state of neuronal agitation, is to retrain the nervous system to operate in a more relaxed and natural manner, allowing in higher spirit-heart-mind-body functioning. The best way to do this seems to be mindfulness based meditation. Combined with a focus on building heart-coherence.

Groups doing instrumented research on heart-coherence, such as HeartMath and Stresseraser, say that repeated doses of heart coherence at regular intervals are necessary to reverse the ergotropic tuning effect. A few times a week, or irregularly is not going to be sufficient. What they are recommending is simply to do your mindfulness program for 15 mins each day before sleep -- then the entire sleep time has more potential for being in parasympathetic mode all night long, giving hours of increased time for the detuning of the ergotropic condition.

What I have found personally, is that each evening when I sit down before bed to do my mindfulness, a huge amount happens in that 30 or so minutes. It is not 'simply' reducing stress and increasing heart coherence. It is opening new life force channels both within our bodies, and into nature intelligence. I sometimes do a few minutes of very slow and spacious vocal improvisation after these sittings. And the creative channels are very much expanded by this increased space and openness.

It seems to me this heart-coherence mindfulness meditation is an essential element of a daily practice of transformation. It builds synergy with the energizing elements, and allows dysfunctional parts of the psyche and old persona to relax into new possibilities. Here is a description of the HeartMath Quick Coherence technique, that you can do alone in very little time. Or better to incorporate within your existing mindfulness practice.

"Emotional Guidance System" awareness

The Abraham-Hicks organization has a wide variety of books and materials for working with what is being called the Law of Attraction (simply stated: what you put your attention on, grows.) One of their primary tools is to be aware of your "emotional guidance system". By being sensitive to how you feel in any given moment, you can notice if your vibrational state is on an even keel, or heading downward.

At that moment that you sense yourself feeling a downward trend in your scale of emotions, it is almost always because of some negative thought processes that were activated (consciously or unconsciously). So the advise at this point is to "reach for a better feeling thought". There are a myriad of techniques and tips for doing this in their book, Ask and It Is Given.

The HeartMath techniques (mentioned above) can help in this regard. They have a simple process called The Power of Neutral, which is just to take a time-out moment and breathe through the heart area until a more balanced perspective is reached:

Take a time-out, breathing slowly and deeply.
Imagine the air entering and leaving through the heart area, or the center of your chest. This imagination of the air motion really helps to bring the locus of control back to your heart center, instead of rerunning mental patterns.
Disengage from the stressful thoughts and anxious feelings as you continue to breathe.
Continue until you have neutralized the emotional charge. It hasnt gone completely away, but at least now you are _neutral_. This brings in more of your real aligned self and neutral observer and opens up higher cortical functioning.

Deborah Rozman of HeartMath says that as stressful events come up throughout the day, you may need to do the Power of Neutral dozens or hundreds of times -- that is ok and normal. Each time you do it however you are retraining your heart-intelligence to operate in a better way in the future. It takes time for this shift, be patient. In the long term it will change the way you perceive, feel and think.

Liquid Zeolites

A number of naturopathic physicians are saying that physical toxins and emotional toxins are intertwined. That is, where you find one in the body you are likely to find the other. If the body somehow takes on toxic physical substances, it finds a place to stuff them that is less alive and less lifeforce there. And consequently that storage further reduces the chi flow.

As you unwind this storage process, both the emotional and physical toxins will release and chi flow will restore to increased levels. Each of these will catalyze the others.

In 2001 a chemist, Harvey Kaufman, patented a unique process to turn zeolite into very small nano scale structures that are absorbable orally. Zeolite has been used for a long time for its ability to bind to and remove toxins. However up to Kaufman's discovery, it was always in a fairly course powder form that could not easily circulate in the blood, nor cross the blood-brain barrier.

Here are some excellent background articles you can read, the first by Dr. Gabriel Cousins, MD. And the second by Dr. James Howenstein, also an MD.

Kaufman's small company, Lifelink, sold the rights to Waiora and Waiora began to manufacture NCD (Natural Cellular Defense) Liquid Zeolite. This product is well established and has a good track record. However, in the last year or so Waiora has begun modifying Kaufman's original formula.

Consequently Kaufman has relaunched his own product line, called ZNatural by TrilogyRX. I've used both and believe the ZNatural to be of somewhat higher quality. Kaufman's original formula used lab synthesized zeolite with very small nano particle size. Waiora's revision of the formula appears to be using mined zeolite, which can have more variable qualities than a purely lab generated variety.

I started with the NCD in 2006, then switched to ZNatural in 2007. Both work, but my testing and that of others I respect is showing that the ZNatural may have increased efficacy over the NCD due to its manufacturing process. You should use some form of guidance system testing to see when and how much of this you can use.

Be sure you drink plenty of water while using the zeolite, the toxins are flushed out in your urine.

Laser Energetic Detox (L.E.D.)

Dr. Lee Cowden, MD, has created a technique that combines biophotonics with homeopathy to accomplish deep levels of detoxification. Following a detailed protocol, the client is energetically tested for which toxins might be present in which organ systems. Homeopathic versions of those toxins are then programmed into small vials of water and a beam of laser (or other) light is shined through the vial and then projected onto the client's skin. This is done in a sweeping fashion, over most of the body area. But also concentrating on those areas that have a higher toxic load.

In addition to programming the appropriate toxins into the vial, the client is also tested for which flower essence support vibrations will aid the detox process. These are then programmed for additional scans. An excellent article from Explore magazine on the process is here.

So while ZNatural or NCD can bind and extract most of the toxins -- this LED procedure does have application for the more entrenched and embedded situations. Not everyone will need this, but for those who do, it is a great innovation.

Since LED operates via transmission of information, it is adaptable to other protocols and technologies which can convey bioinformation. So a broader name for this might be IED, Information Energetic Detox.

EMF protection / detox

There are a wide variety of vibrational technologies that can offer some degree of protection or anti-stress action against the negative effects of Electromagnetic Fields. I've used quite a few of these: Q-Link, Ally, ATOX, Ra*d*ar, Implosion Research, etc.

One of the simplest and most effective however is something called orgonite, around which a cottage industry has formed, where it is produced in a kind of hand assembled form. The general form is of a block of epoxy or polyester resin, in which various items are embedded. These include chips and strips of metal, and actual crystals. Typical size is in the form of a "muffin" as it comes out of a muffin tin. One of these will protect a 20 foot or so radius area. Four of them together, it goes out to 50 feet or so. But does not increase from there.

I've used many of the devices on the market, but find that the orgonite provides the most effect for the least dollars. Here is the little mom and pop company I use, located in the California Sierra mountains foothills: Orgonix.

Some other detox tools

In no special order:

the energy psychology toolbox: EFT, TAT, ZPoint, Psych-K, etc.
breathwork: Grof, Hendricks, Sprinkle ...
rebounders (also an energizer obviously): Bellicon and Urban.
bodywork
video presentation by Dr. David Brownstein on the value of iodine supplementation and how it effects the endocrine and immune systems. Real Media, you can right click to download these to your desktop then play. Parts: 1-iodine 2-immune 3-detox 4-mercury
antioxidants, vitamins C, E, A.
vigorous scrubdown with a soapy washcloth in the shower to flush and activate lymph system