Getting Unstuck for Greater Health

Have you ever felt stuck, either emotionally or physically? It doesn’t feel good, and you probably don’t feel as resilient and alive as when things were flowing more freely. Stagnation causes problems for people’s health in a variety of ways, which is why the goal from an integrative and holistic medicine standpoint is to keep your natural vital life force moving without obstruction.

Think about a river that gets blocked, creating a stagnant body of water where there was once movement. Debris builds up, paving the way for the overgrowth of bacteria and harmful algae, providing a new breeding ground for parasitic or non-native organisms. This affects not only the river itself but the entire ecosystem to which it is connected. 

Our bodies are similar - when the flow of energy is decreased or blocked in one area, our whole system becomes stressed as it deals with this stagnation.

Continued stress eventually causes weakness and impaired functioning of cells, organs, and nerves, which can manifest as physical discomfort and, if left unchecked, may lead to disease. But what causes an energetic blockage? It can be any number of internal or external forces that our bodies are constantly navigating and responding to. 

One example might be the energy of a certain emotion that we can’t seem to let go of. A common one is frustration. Let’s say you’re frustrated with a situation or a person, and you don’t think it’s a big deal, but the frustration doesn’t let up and you don’t find a way to move past it. Every time you feel that emotion, you might also experience tightness in your belly. The tightness continues daily and eventually decreases blood flow to that area of the body - specifically the digestive organs. The blood in veins and capillaries cannot flow freely when muscles tense up, like a hose with a kink that impairs the flow of the water inside. You might feel relatively normal, but as weeks and months go by with the energy of the frustration continuing and the tension becoming chronic, suddenly stomach pains, bloating, and constipation begin to surface. You don’t understand what is happening because you haven’t changed your diet. A stagnant emotion has now progressed into a physical problem as you become less able to digest food efficiently. When food doesn’t get broken down completely or absorbed properly, your energy dips. As toxins build up due to backed-up elimination pathways, your body becomes inflamed, and then even new symptoms emerge. You get the picture…This example is just one of the endless different presentations that could occur in a unique person and their specific ecosystem.

However the root is usually generally the same, in that somewhere or somehow the free-flowing life force, the innate self-correcting intelligence within the person, was hindered. As a result, their body’s natural tendency toward balance and healing was compromised.

It’s fundamental that movement and change equal life. If you think about it, all living things are constantly adapting and changing and flowing. They respond to internal and external input, stressors, nutrients, pathogens, toxins, seasonal shifts, and more. To achieve optimal health, we never want to stop responding, because to do so would stop the flow of life.

In our clinic, we often see people with a complex set of symptoms. As trained holistic practitioners, we aim to figure out the underlying causes of symptoms so we are not taking the “band-aid” approach to health. The problem is that once a person goes from having an energetic imbalance to having multiple symptoms, the original cause for the blockage of vital energy may be difficult to unpack. This is where bioenergetic testing can be utilized as an incredibly helpful tool.

This technology helps us understand each person’s body even better by measuring energetic pathways that we can’t always see and finding specific balancing energies that can bring each unique body back into balance and back into flow.

Using this tool alongside our clinical knowledge brings a whole new level of possibility to our patients and their care.

Learn More About Bioenergetic Testing at PHC

Written by Amber Merkens, Clinical Herbalist and Integrative Specialist.

Amber is available for Herbal Medicine Consultations, and QEST4 Bioenergetic Testing. Read Amber's bio HERE.