As you can tell from previous posts, I love new experiences. Not heart-stopping ones like riding a roller coaster or sky-jumping (not on my bucket list to do either of those), but those that allow me to remain grounded or at least close to the ground. Since becoming a Cellular Response energy healing practitioner, I am now very interested in other energy healing modalities. My previous posts have talked about Quantum-Touch, Reiki, Hypnotherapy, Polarity Therapy and now my latest experience, CranioSacral Therapy (CST).

I was the fortunate recipient of a gift card to Massage Envy. I checked out their Web site and noticed that they offered CST. I was very excited because it is something that I wanted to experience. I had heard from CranioSacral therapists that CST was similar to Cellular Response. However, the one I experienced at Massage Envy was not anything like Cellular Response which is light-touch healing. What I experienced was definitely much like a massage.

According to Kelly Price in an ezine.com article, craniosacral massage is a gentle, hands-on method of evaluating and enhancing the function of the craniosacral system and this type of massage involves a very light touch. The goal is for the body to heal itself, similar to Cellular Response. Other similarities included breathing and holding two points, but overall, it was just a massage. Perhaps I will get to experience it again from someone who specializes in it.

Last week the Washington Post had an article in its Wellness section — Choosing the right painkiller doesn’t have to be such a headache. Since I had just talked about natural alternatives in my last post, I thought this was a good follow-up. Notice the row, Be careful if. Yes, there are side effects even with common over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. If the chart is not clear, please click on it and it will open in a new window.

It is important to understand your own body. Take control. Research natural alternatives. For example, the other day I twisted my knee slightly and was uncomfortable. So I gave my knee a Cellular Response energy healing treatment and doubled up on my glucosamine/chondroitan/msm (click here). I also used an all-natural topical analgesic (click here). The next day I was back at the gym.

Remember, there are side effects to even over-the-counter medications. Before you reach for one, see if there are any natural alternatives that might help.

Last week I was on a panel at the luncheon of the Women’s Network of Springfield. The title of the panel was: Smart Women Make Smart Choices. The other two panelists  were Elaine Gibson of B/B Envirosystems and Lynne Porzel of The Intuitive Healing Center. I talked about natural alternatives to health and healing.

Here is my part of the discussion:

I want to talk about two areas of  your health: Medications and Healing Naturally. Last month a distant relative a couple of years younger than I, died. She had been having sleeping problems and taking sleeping pills. We thought she had overdosed on the pills, but she actually committed suicide by jumping off a balcony. Thoughts of suicide is a side effect of sleeping pills.

All drugs have side effects. Have you ever noticed TV and radio commercials have a long section on possible side effects where they ramble them very quickly? The effect might be minor or they might be major. If there are side effects from the first medication, doctors sometimes prescribe a second medication to counteract the side effects of the first medication. The doctor won’t tell you this, but the side effect might be that the medication is depleting  you of nutrients. Click here.

You are in charge of your own body: You can take the illness path or the wellness path. I believe smart women will take the wellness path.

I encourage you to take charge of your body and not fill your body with medicines. I have an 82-year old neighbor with Parkinson’s disease. He is always complaining about being tired and having no energy. He does not give his body any nutritional supplements; only a half dozen prescription medications. No wonder he’s tired.

Acid reflux is a common problem and many doctors prescribe Nexium, the purple pill. Well, it’s habit forming. There are natural alternatives. You can drink alkaline water or sleep on a wedge pillow.

You’re a smart woman. Make smart choices about your health and what you will put in your body.

Second, I want to talk about healing naturally. I want to announce that I will be starting an energy healing practice later this year and together with my nutritional supplement business, I will be practicing my passion of making people well naturally.

I thought energy healing would be something I’d like to do after hearing about some amazing results, but to be sure (since I’d never worked on anyone before), I had my hands analyzed by Peggie Arvidson and she confirmed that I am a gifted healer. Hence, I took the plunge started training in Cellular Response — light touch energy healing where the body heals itself. It has been the most rewarding thing that I’ve ever done. Recently, I “saved” someone from having surgery for stomach problems. Just before going into the operating room, the doctor checked her stomach and declared that she did not need the surgery. She was elated. The only thing that had changed was that she had the Cellular Response energy healing.

I have been practicing on volunteers since November and I am looking for more volunteers. I may or may not be able to help. (If you are in the Washington, DC Metro Area, you can contact me at 703.825.8384 or e-mail me at info@noranagatani.com).

In conclusion, I hope this panel will make you realize that you have to make your health your top priority. If you don’t make the time to take care of yourself now, you can be sure that illness will steal your time later.

Gus in his Polarity Therapy Studio

Is it possible to feel pain and ticklish at the same time? Is it possible that pain could feel good? These were the sensations I felt as I experienced polarity therapy along with acupressure and reflexology. Although Cosmos Yoga and Healing is closing its doors, owner Constantis “Gus” Christofi will continue his polarity therapy practice at a new location. You previously met Gus in this post.

According to the American Polarity Therapy Association,”Energy fields and currents exist everywhere in nature. Polarity Therapy asserts that the flow and balance of energy in the human body is the foundation of good health. In the Polarity model, health is experienced when:

1. Energy systems function in their natural state, and
2. Energy flows smoothly without significant blockage or fixation.

When energy is unbalanced, blocked or fixed due to stress or other factors, pain and disease arise.”

What makes Polarity Therapy unique is that they bring in other healing systems as well. For example, Gus used acupressure, reflexology, oils, and sounds.

To begin the session, I was lying on my back with my head on a wooden “half moon” pillow. It was very uncomfortable to start, but bearable. I was told to move my head back and forth for 100 times as quickly as possible. Simultaneously he was shaking my legs. He then informed me that our feet are the entrance to the inside of our body and proceeded to press certain points. Talk about being ticklish and feeling pain at the same time. He said to relax and as I did the sensations subsided. Whew!

He continued the session by bringing his hands over my left leg up to the crown and down the left leg (called balancing the long lines). When he felt any energy blockages at acupoints, he pressed hard. Ouch! He did the same to the back side with me lying on my stomach. Then he brought in accessories using a cream, a Neptune Fork for sound, and concluding with an oil for smell.

As a Cellular Response practitioner, I am interested in other forms of energy healing. I am amazed at all of the different practices. Since they all deal with energy, there are many parts that are similar. With both of our practices, we believe that we can facilitate wellness, but your body heals itself. I was fortunate to have met Gus and experienced Polarity Therapy. Gus practices in Fairfax County, Virginia and can be contacted by e-mail at cosmosyogahealing@verizon.net.

As an active student of Cellular Response (CR) energy healing, I am also interested in other energy healing arts. A few years ago, a reiki practitioner volunteered her reiki healing to help me recover from an injury. More recently, I listened to Eva Arciszewski , a reiki master, talk about her practice, Reiki Wisdom, and watched as she demonstrated on a volunteer at one of our energy healers meeting. A couple of weeks later, my sister (Dianne), a level two trained reiki practitioner, and I exchanged the experience on each other, with Dianne performing reiki on me and with me performing Cellular Response on her.

According to Eva, we are all energy. Any information comes to the heart chakra first (the heart chakra is one of the seven centers of spiritual energy in the human body according to yoga philosophy — dictionary.com) then it goes to the brain. Illness results when we are unbalanced — it originates in the energy field.

Eva Arciszewski

Eva says reiki can be learned. There are three levels plus the master level. Neuropathways are opened and we can feel more energy. The healer is the vessel for energy to flow, not the energy itself. You need to trust your own body as a source of self-healing.

Dianne added that in reiki, the practitioner is not treating the person, reiki is doing it. It is like a garden hose that’s serving as the vessel to go to someone else. In order to practice, you must be initiated by a master.

As I experienced reiki, the biggest differences as compared to Cellular Response were the touch and breathing. In Cellular Response, the touch is very light, whereas with reiki, it was a heavier touch. In reiki, there is no specific breathing pattern, whereas with CR, there is a specific breathing sequence in order to bring up the energy. As I experienced reiki, I could feel the energy in my feet. Reiki also involves symbolism which is not part of CR. In both modalities, permission must be granted before the practitioner can work on you. After the treatment, I felt a greater energy balance.

With seniors facing more and more health challenges each day, energy healing offers the possibility of having the body heal itself and perhaps avoiding the need for medication. It is definitely worth the time to investigate the energy-healing modalities.

Can you believe another year has flown by? Happy New Year! Here at noranagatani.com it was an incredible year of awesome experiences. I hope it was full of wonderful memories for you as well. For my husband and me, it was always the anticipation of seeing and being with our now 16-month old granddaughter. She flew in with her parents on Christmas night and it was the best gift anyone could ask for. Together with my younger son and his wife, we are currently enjoying our holiday family reunion.

Are you living your life’s purpose? I had a hand analysis done this year and found that I am a gifted healer. It validated my wanting to learn and practice Cellular Response, an energy healing modality founded in California by Dan Yamaguchi of Silicon Valley Health and Wellbeing. It gives me immense pleasure to help people with their pain (and as seniors, don’t our bodies pop up with pain here and there all the time?) I am very excited about continuing my education in this area.

I hope you enjoyed Joanne Lozar Glenn’s series on writing. I am inviting more senior guest bloggers to join me on this blog to share their expertise with you. I’ve met many of them through the Women’s Network of Springfield, a women’s networking group that I co-founded. If you have a Facebook account, you can visit us here.

Take good care of yourself. Remember, the gift of health is the best gift you can give yourself and your loved ones. Happy New Year!

In the past year, I’ve been introduced to two energy healing modalities — Quantum-Touch and Cellular Response. Both advocate that your body can heal itself. The first time I sought a Quantum-Touch practitioner was because I had fallen hard on my cheek bone and it did not feel right after many months despite the fact that the ophthalmologist and the otolaryngologist could find nothing wrong. I found Miriam Hunter in Virginia and she balanced the energy in my body, showed me some exercises and I felt much relief.

Cellular Response was something I experienced just a few days ago on a visit to California. During my yoga class a couple of months ago, I noticed that I did not have full range of motion with my left arm stretched above my head lying on the floor. Additionally, if I tried to lift my arm in the “wrong” direction, it was painful. At the beginning of the treatment, while standing, I was able to lift my left arm 90 degrees straight out to the side. By the end, I could lift it to almost 180 degrees. It’s weak from limited use, but I was given weight-training instructions to strengthen it. I’ve always had a left knee that tends to buckle and the practitioner found that my hips were not aligned. Now he says, I should walk a lot better. Hopefully, that will prevent falls as well.

I spent almost three hours at a Cellular Response workshop where, under the guidance of the master instructor and developer of Cellular Response, Dan Yamaguchi, I watched his students of all levels work on mostly seniors (after all, aren’t we the group with all of the aches and pains?) for a myriad of health problems. One person was about to receive treatment for cancer and although Cellular Response cannot cure cancer (it does not claim to cure anything), a person can get relief from the effects such as nausea and it can even prevent hair loss. I also watched while someone with calcium deposits from arthritis on her fingers had them broken up so that the lump on her fingers got smaller.

According to quantumtouch.com, Quantum-Touch is a powerful, yet easy to learn, method of natural healing (or energy healing).  Everyone has the innate ability to help ourselves and others. The Quantum-Touch techniques teach us how to focus and amplify life-force energy (or Chi, Bioenergy, Prana) by combining various breathing and energy awareness exercises.  QT energy healers learn to amplify and direct the life-force energy, facilitating the body’s own healing process. Our love has more impact than we can imagine; the possibilities are truly extraordinary.

The Cellular Response brochure says that Cellular Response is a healing art. It is a procedure used to activate one’s cellular response to promote natural healing. A gentle touch to specific body points along with a breathing process is used during this procedure. The basic premise is that the body will heal by itself and return to a normal state. Cellular Response accelerates the self-healing process.

Quantum Touch offers teleseminars. For more information, click here. Richard Gordon, founder of Quantum-Touch, wrote a book called, Quantum-Touch: The Power to Heal. He explains all of the basic techniques in his book.

Cellular Response currently operates mainly in the Silicon Valley/San Jose area of California, although there are a few practitioners elsewhere. For more information, you can e-mail me at nora@noranagatani.com or call me at  703.825.8384. I find energy healing fascinating and in line with my view of using all natural products instead of prescription medication. Click here to view my post on prescription medication and nutrient depletion.