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Acupuncture Today – December, 2003, Vol. 04, Issue 12

The Heart of Healing: Restoring Our Original Program

By Darren Starwynn, OMD, LAc

What really happens when a person shifts from chronic physical or emotional pain to enjoy a new, expanded experience of wholeness? Is it due to a shift in brain chemistry? Is it a change in the body's bioelectrical patterns? Or is it a spiritual phenomenon?

The "heart of healing" is what allows a real shift in the inner, fundamental cause of pain or disease, and includes all of the above.

Few people have claimed the level of self-awareness and self-responsibility required for this, and many may be able only to accept palliative treatment. Yet a rapidly increasing number of people are awakening to their desire and readiness to live a life of wholeness. They understand the need to clear out their old, limiting programs, and are drawn to practitioners who can support them on that level.

The tools of vibrational medicine - acupuncture, colored light, sound, microcurrent and healing touch - can greatly help by bringing pure and harmonious information into the client's body.

The meaning of "information" here relates to the reality of a life program, or etheric blueprint, that holds all of the information that makes us who and what we are. We are all familiar with genetics, which studies the coding of DNA that holds information about our traits. Our genes may make us tall or short, blonde or brunette, and determine our constitutional type. They may also predispose us to a variety of illnesses. On a more subtle energy level, our life program holds our full potential as a being, beyond the limitations of our genetics. In this view, spiritual growth is the process of embodying greater potentials of our life program on the physical, emotional and mental levels - i.e., self-actualizing.

According to the pioneering German physician Reinhold Voll, the creator of EAV (electroacupuncture by Voll):

"Pain is the outcry of the tissue for flooding energy, and with it, flowing information - to put it simply, for each pain, there is a reason in the depths of consciousness."

It is ongoing pain in some form that brings most patients to the offices of health practitioners. The skills of the practitioner often are able to relieve the pain or reduce or eliminate the uncomfortable symptoms. Yet how many of these same patients return again and again, with the same or a different set of symptoms? How many seek other practitioners, hoping that the next one, or the newest healing system, will finally allow them to move from pain to live a more fulfilling life?

The acupuncture profession is growing because in most cases, it is effective for relieving a wide range of pain and dysfunction. Yet those patients who do not respond to well-chosen treatments need not be considered clinical failures. We can view poor responses to acupuncture as diagnostic information: These patients require information restoration on a deeper, more causative level.

This is where vibrational therapies can be of great benefit. Each color of light, electrical frequency and musical note carries an aspect of pure information that resonates with some aspect of body-mind-emotion.

Perhaps the most advanced method of color light therapy is the colorpuncture system developed by Peter Mandel, a German naturopath. Colorpuncture directly addresses imbalances in the endocrine gland and lymphatic systems, and coordinates brain function. In this way, it is a wonderful bridge between Chinese and Western medicine. Mandel believes that longstanding negative and toxic emotions are stored in the lymphatic system. This correlates with Voll's experience that the lymphatics must be opened and cleared to successfully heal many chronic pain patients.

Mandel also offers a fascinating view of the etiology of cancer. He states that mental rigidity or spiritual blockages can inhibit the function of the pituitary, the master gland of the endocrine system. This can greatly reduce endocrine energy levels and hormonal output. The next step in the causal chain would lead to stagnation in the lymphatic system. If this persists over a long period of time, crystallization can take place in the tissues, creating tumors.

Yellow light, which brings clear information to the lymphatic system, can be applied to Ren 22, St 12 and the extra Voll point Lymph 11 (above TCM acupoint St 11) to clear the lympatics in the neck region. Green light can be used to balance the brain, destroy micro-organisms and stimulate the pituitary gland. It also can reduce swellings and tumors. Dinshah Ghadiali, a researcher and proponent of color light therapy in the U.S., used green light for treating many cancer patients successfully. Why can green light reduce tumors? Probably because of restoring the "balance" aspect of the life program, as green is in the middle of the light spectrum.

I have used color light therapies extensively to help clients get in touch with and clear core issues at the root of nonresponsive pain and disease conditions. In almost all cases, a core truth that was hidden came up during the session. This unrecognized truth maintained a vortex of energy that held the pain or dysfunction in place. This could involve beliefs in unworthiness, shame, lacking, or even discomfort being on Earth! Beaming pure information into the acupuncture networks can support clients in experiencing greater inner balance and connectedness, thus making them feel safe enough to recognize core truths about themselves. Awareness and acceptance are the first, and most important, parts of healing negative and limiting inner programs.

Here are a few personal examples of this approach.

1. Joanne (name has been changed) is a meditation teacher who came to me with chronic shoulder pain. She had already been treated, without much relief. She knew that I worked with vibrational therapies, and asked if I could help relieve her pain and restricted movement.

I evaluated her, and after determining her meridian imbalances, administered a microcurrent treatment that included local treatment as well as whole-body balancing master points. She experienced about a 70 percent relief of the pain after receiving this treatment. Some of the deeper pain persisted, however.

I sensed that this was not just a physical injury, but was connected to aspects of Joanne's personal history. I applied yellow light to some of the lymphatic points listed above, plus violet light to the region of Ren 4, the second chakra and some other regions. Violet supports soul-spirit connectedness, and is the complementary color to yellow. As the color was being applied, I relaxed my clinical mind and opened my heart and intuition, asking her to do the same.

Soon a stream of perceptions came. I asked Joanne about her relationship with her mother and her ancestry in eastern Europe. After some intuitive dialoguing, it became clear to both of us that she was carrying forward an unspoken tradition among the women in her family to quietly "shoulder" suffering within difficult family dynamics.

Once Joanne became aware of this unconscious agreement, and simply connected with the energy of it, she chose to make a new decision: She no longer wanted or needed to carry her family's pain. We then witnessed this heavy energy release and "unwind" out of her body. Her shoulder now felt at least 90 percent better, and the relief lasted for many weeks.

2. Charlene (name changed again) came to a lecture I gave about vibrational healing. She had chronic back and hip pain for eight years, and as she was a bodyworker, she had worked on it extensively without lasting relief.

When it was time for demonstrations, I treated Charlene with my microcurrent light unit for a couple of minutes. After using the light probes to treat the center of the painful hip and a reflex point on her upper chest for about 90 seconds, she told me that the pain was completely gone - for the first time in years.

When I talked to Charlene almost a month later, she told me she had been pain-free that entire time, and that only a little bit of discomfort had just started to come back at the end of the month.


Chinese medicine teaches that pain is the experience of blockage in the flow of qi, or vital life force, through the meridians of the body.

In a broader sense, we can say that pain is the actual feeling of resisting the flow of life. At this time, so much pain and disease is based on resistance and difficulty adapting to change. The pace of change on our planet and in human society is greatly accelerating in our lifetimes, with lots of uncertainty and seemingly overwhelming planetary problems. In just a few generations, so many reference points of stability have disappeared or changed. The stresses of "future shock" are upon us.

Those that can open their minds and hearts and adapt to change well are those who are doing the best through this transition time. Many people want to do this, and are capable of it, but they just need the right intervention and support at the right time.

It is possible to place our body, mind and emotions within the harmonious field of our life program and renew our experience. Using computer terminology, this can accurately be considered "rebooting" our internal operating system! The application of colored light and musical tones can greatly facilitate this process.

This is the heart of healing: helping our patients reconnect with the clarity and harmony of their life program. As they or we do this, many adjustments follow in the organs and glands, nervous system, brain function and biochemistry that restore homeostasis and well-being.

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions or comments.


Click here for previous articles by Darren Starwynn, OMD, LAc.


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