Learn Qi Gong

                                       

What is Qi Gong?

Qi Gong is part of an ancient Chinese exercise and healing system.   "Qi" roughly translates to vital energy, information, breath or spirit.  "Gong" means work, cultivation or mastery.   Qi Gong is therefore sometimes translated as "energy work", "vital energy cultivation" or "mastery of your energy." 

When you practice the slow, mindful physical movements of Qi Gong you're training to have more resiliency, balance, flexibility, focus and awareness by bringing qi into the muscles, bones and tendons through specifically designed routines.   Qi Gong is also a highly effective way to lessen the effects of aging and manage your stress.  

Benefits of Qi Gong

 

Research reported through the National Institute of Health has concluded Qi Gong provides consistent and significant health benefits related to:

• bone density
• cardiopulmonary effects
• physical function
• falls and related risk factors
• psychological symptoms
• immune function

Learn Qi Gong

Earth Dragon Healing is happy to announce we are now offering Qi Gong classes in Hamilton, ON 

Location:  Beyond Healing Pathways, 662 Fennell Ave E Unit #1, Hamilton

When:       You can find our class schedule on Earth Dragon Healing Facebook Events

                                                                                                       or

                                                                          Earth Dragon Healing Website

Pathways to Health

Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual Healing

According to The World Health Organization, "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease."  In keeping with this idea of health, working to create a sense of well-being on the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels is what Reiki is all about.

Many people use the terms "healing" and "curing" interchangeably but it's important to understand they do not mean the same thing.  Curing means to completely eradicate an illness or disease in the physical body while healing can occur on many different levels and isn't  even necessarily linked to a physical condition.

click here to learn more about healing vs. curing 

 

 
What does it mean to heal on these different levels?

1. Physical - healing on this level might mean eliminating an illness completely, or could simply mean alleviating the symptoms for a while , allowing time to address any underlying root causes that might be found on the emotional, mental or spiritual levels. 
   
2. Emotional - emotional healing might result in calming fears or coming to acceptance of the effects of life-events such as illness, bereavement, job loss, etc.
   
3. Mental - the deep state of relaxation assists with the mental release of negative thought patterns or attitudes that might be interfering with relationships or achieving life goals.
   
4. Spiritual - healing from a spiritual level could result in a more compassionate attitude towards self, others and the natural world.  Or it might assist in releasing restrictive belief systems to support greater self-expression and creativity. 

The Body Heals with Play

The Mind Heals with Laughter

The Spirit heals with Joy

 

Possibillian

P is for Possibillian

 Yes, "possibillian" is really a word.  Granted, you won't find it in any dictionary (yet), but there's an entry for it on wikipedia, so it must be a real word, right?

Possibillian was coined by neuroscientist David Eagleman in response to being asked whether he was an atheist or a religious person.   He replied "I call myself a Possibilian: I'm open to ideas that we don't have any way of testing right now. "
 

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd"

Voltaire          

Once we get beyond the toolbox of science, no one knows anything for certain.  Actually, the only thing we do know for certain is the magnitude of things we don't know.    Being a possibillian means you don't have to limit yourself to one belief system - you can be open to multiple possibilities and ideas at the same time.  And it's okay to say "I don't know" - what a novel and freeing idea!

If you're interested in possibillianism you can watch David here or check out his website here

"Celebrate possibility and praise uncertainty."  David Eagleman

The Brow Chakra: No sweat required

In traditional Yogic chakra theory, there are 7 major chakras in the body.  These chakras are like emotional and spiritual transducers that absorb and distribute life energy to various body organs and tissues.   In the same way that physical toxins can produce illness, emotional toxins can poison the physical and spiritual body in many subtle ways.

My previous chakra posts:       For the heart chakra please click here
                                                 For the solar plexus chakra please click here

Today we explore the brow (or third eye) chakra.

The Brow Chakra

This chakra, located in the centre of your forehead just above your eyebrows, is associated with your eyes, ears, and the parts of your brain where two very important glands reside - the hypothalamus and the pituitary.  Together, these two glands regulate all the other glands in the body, controlling your body temperature, water balance, metabolism, intellectual functioning, emotions, sex drive, pain and pleasure. 

Emotionally and spiritually your brow chakra is related to your ability to see your life clearly, your intuition and inner vision as well as the use of your mind for intellectual purposes.  This is where we define our relationship to knowledge, wisdom and vision.  It is said this chakra may become blocked when we do not allow ourselves to "see" what's going on in our lives, or when we relate to others and the world around us only through our emotions while entirely ignoring what our minds have to say.

Considered the seat of intuition, chakra theory suggests that as we start to mature spiritually and allow ourselves to open to new ideas and information, we begin to make a spiritual shift in consciousness.  This shift may eventually allow us to see beyond the visible physical world into the higher vibrational world of subtle energy.

Mind-Body Reality

Many months ago I heard about Dr. Candace Pert and decided to read her book "The Molecules of Emotion".   I added my name to the waiting list at my local library, then forgot all about it.  A few months after doing this, I decided to take a physiology / anatomy night school class.   Our second class was about cell structure and how substances move across cell membranes.  The day after the cell lesson my library called with an automated message that a book was ready for me to pick up.  As I had completely forgotten which book it was, I headed off to the library wondering what I might find.    And there it was, a book about how emotions move back and forth between the physical and non-physical as information chemicals absorbed into cells, delivered to me the day after I learned how the cell receptor mechanism operates.  What an interesting coincidence!

Though I've witnessed amazing healing take place through my Reiki practice, my internal skeptic is uncomfortable with not being able to explain, in any scientific way, what it is exactly that I do.  Always looking for a more tangible explanation, I was eager to read the supporting science that is Ms. Pert's amazing career.   Her decades of experiments clearly demonstrate the interconnectedness of the various body systems, and debunks the idea that the brain is the body's control centre.  She has proven that instructions do not initiate in the brain and disseminate to the body through it's various systems.  Instead, the execution of the instructions take place simultaneously in the brain and the body using exactly the same chemicals.  Functionally, you cannot separate the body from the mind - they are the same thing.   Finally - here was the proof I'd been looking for!  I couldn't wait to finish reading the book - to find those tangible answers I could share with my clients.

As with any book on the subject of mind-body connection, eventually she had to leave the hard science behind and speculate what some of her findings might mean.    If the circulation of emotional and spiritual information throughout the body-mind is a chemical process,  and if this chemical process is what sifts through our thoughts, determining which ones rise to our consciousness, then is our body our unconscious mind?   Do the paths these chemical processes follow throughout the body flow along what has come to be known as the acupuncture meridians?   Is this chemical movement what generates subtle energy?  If emotions are chemicals stored in our cells, does this mean our bodies literally hold our memories? 

These are exciting questions!  Imagine how our understanding would grow if we had the answer to even one of them.   Her book addressed so many important questions, so why does it feel that so much was left unanswered?

If you visualize all knowledge as an island of information, and the surrounding ocean as all that is yet to be learned, then the shoreline is the edge of the known/unknown.  As more is learned, the island gets larger.  And as the island gets larger, the shoreline gets longer, making the known and unknown grow at the same rate.

Perhaps it's time to leave my skepticism on the beach and just wade out into the water......