Hot Bods & Pimples

I've had 4 moxa (moxibustion) sessions todate and boy! Am I burnin' up! It seems that my body has been responding so well to this heat treatment that pimples have broken out on my face! In fact that was the first thing my TCM doctor so very kindly pointed out to me when he saw me today! How sweet! He attributed that to the moxa because for me, an occasional pimple every now and then is normal-5 overnight is not! And it's not just the pimples - my body felt like an overheated nuclear reactor. I've had to throw off the blanket last night and crank up the a/c because I was so hot. It felt like I could fry an egg on my body! I am not sure how far I've got to take this, but I will just have to put my trust in my doctor, who is monitoring me closely. He says I should push on with the moxa.

So today, I had my 4th moxa. This moxa thing may sound like some hocus-pocus waving of a burning wand over my needle-pricked body, but its effects are surprisngly real. I've had 2 unusual experiences during today's session that convinced me that the moxa has opened up my energy channels - once my doctor had inserted all the acupuncture needles, my bed started to sway. It felt like 2 people were bumping the foot and head of my bed back and forth, back and forth. I thought - "Oh no! Earthquake? The building is swaying!" So I extended both my arms outwards and braced myself against the walls (the private room was quite narrow) to stop the bed from swaying, but the swaying didn't stop. It was then that I realized that the sensation was occurring from inside my body. The needles had triggered the circulation of Qi or energy up and down my body. So the surging of the energy made me sway! It was quite an amazing feeling! No one else said they felt the building swaying, so it must have been all me.

The second unusual experience I had was the burning sensation I had on the back and left side of my waist. I had just completed the 50-minute moxa and acupuncture session, and was walking around when I felt it. Immediately I asked the doctor about it and he explained that the moxa had opened up the channels and hormonal glands in my kidney. Well, it made sense because that burning was where the kidney's located. Apparently, my other kidney is still asleep...

A Diversion

I used to be sceptical about Oriental Medicine. Needles, herbal medicine and invisible Qi sounded so hocus pocus and unscientific to me. That was until I was almost blown over by the power of the Qi, demonstrated on me, by a Qi Gong Master. It made me a believer! I had gone to his class about self-healing through Qi Gong because of the many cases of cancers in my immediate and extended families. When you learn that conventional western medicine cannot cure cancer, you look for alternatives.

In our first lesson, The Qi Gong Master made it a point to prove to us sceptics that Qi really existed and what it could do. He called me up together with 2 other people to stand in a single file, one infront of the other facing the wall, with our backs to the rest of the class. He called up a 4th volunteer and gave him a piece of paper which had been "zapped" with the Master's Qi. Not knowing what was happening behind us, we just stood and waited. Suddenly, I almost fell backwards. I felt an overwhelming sensation of something pulling me backwards and then pushing me forward. All of us 3 in line were swaying back and forth in tandem with each other. We could hear the whole class crack up. It was only after the "trick" was over that we found out we had been played! The 4th volunteer had stood behind us, holding the paper out infront of him. And as bizarre as it sounds, when he pulled the paper back, he pulled all three of us backwards too! And when he pushed the paper forward, we all fell forwards. I swear, there wasn't a gust of wind anywhere near us! We had absolutely no control of our bodies and were moving like puppets. That was the power of the Qi, surging through our bodies - invisible, but extremely real and effective. That blew me away and it opened my eyes to a whole new world of medicine, the chinese way.

As I attended more classes and practised the Qi Gong exercises, I learned to harness and feel the Qi, which is a natural energy within us. By then I had been converted to a firm believer in the existence of Qi. I had learned to tap into it and guide the Qi to search wherever my body needed healing. My body would automatically move in response to the Qi, swaying or jerking involuntarily wherever the Qi is working. It's astonishing to experience this energy controlling my body. Qi is something you have to feel to believe because you can't see it. The more I practised the more convinced it was there. When I generate enough Qi in my hands, I would always feel a resistance whenever I try to clasp my hands together. It's like an invisible ball of energy in between my hands. Have you ever tried to force two magnets of the same polarity together and feel it repel each other? It feels EXACTLY like that! What you can't see doesn't mean it's not there! It is just amazing to me that we are actually equipped with all this energy and power within us to heal ourselves. Qi Gong has won me over because of its safe, all natural and non-invasive approach to health and healing. It's just you, your mind, your body and your breathing.

So the BIG question you're probably asking - Why haven't I healed myself from endo? Idiotically - I am just too darn lazy! I wish I had the discipline because it requires daily practice, for an hour each time to be effective. It requires you to clear your mind, and focus on breathing and meditation, which, for a whole hour seems like an eternity of boredom. If I have to suffer for health, running on a treadmill with music blasting into my ears while watching TV is more my kind of thing! The MTV generation like me are used to sensory overload and quick gratification. We prefer to pop a pill and have others do the healing for us, at a predetermined schedule that we can follow mindlessly. I believe Qi Gong works, and I am glad I have the knowledge and skills to fall back on. But I don't have the patience. Yet this experience has turned me around and put me on a different path. Western Medicine offered me no cure and little hope, but with one door shut, another opened for me. I knew there was something worthwhile in Oriental Medicine, which had been around for thousands of years longer than Western Medicine. And so my search for a treatment continues...