Meridians are energy pathways that “connect the points” of hundreds of tiny stores of heat, electromagnetic, and even more subtle energies on the surface. Skin. The meridians nourish the organs bound by life energy. Still, they also maintain any pathological disorder of these organs, thus providing the physician with a suitable and extremely accurate diagnosis and therapy tool.
Each of us is a constellation of energy systems, such as the body with its resistance systems, endocrine glands, vascular and other systems the constellation of bodily systems. The eight energy systems work together, usually below your consciousness threshold. They include meridians, chakras, aura, Celtic weaving, a foundation lattice, five rhythms, a triple heater, and unusual flows.
When a new client walks in the door, I am faced with a mixture of impressions. Human energies can be perceived as confused or obstructed. Some of them may be flowing in a direction opposite their natural direction. The fusion of energies can act harmoniously or inconsistently. One of the energy systems can be singled out as one that needs special attention. The meridians can flow backward. The chakras may be too tightly wrapped around the organs. The aura field can be collapsed or filled with holes leading to vulnerability. The energies of the left and right hemispheres of the brain may not pass properly to opposite sides of the body.
Each system is a different form of energy that corresponds to ancient descriptions. Different cultures and their approaches to healing emphasize some of these energy systems.
For example, meridians and five rhythms have guided Chinese acupuncturists for thousands of years. The Indian chakra system precedes acupuncture. Descriptions of the aura, often seen in traditional religious symbolism as a saintly circle, go back at least that far. Unusual currents are well known in the East, and descriptions of this energy system can be found in the shamanistic traditions of the Scandinavian countries and the tribes of the Native Americans.
Celtic weaving is known in the East as the Tibetan energy ring. The underlying lattice, which is associated with apostate psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich and his organic energy, was discovered by scientists who raised cows during the 1960s. They talk about it as a system of waste roads.
YOUR ENERGY TRANSMISSION SYSTEM
The setting of the meridian network evokes awe. Instead of thinking of the meridians as a vague or foreign principle, you can come to know them as fourteen tangible pathways that bring energy into the body, transmit it through the body, and expel it from it. Deep intelligence resides in your meridians. They serve you well without you even being aware that they exist. If you ask for energy delivery in their language, they will do what you wanted.
Meridians are energy pathways that “connect the points” of hundreds of tiny stores of heat, electromagnetic, and even more subtle energies on the surface of the skin. In Chinese medicine, they are known as acupuncture points or “hot spots,” and you can stimulate them with needles or body pressure to release or redistribute energy. Like a river rising or falling, meridians’ flow is always changing, and sensitive individuals can detect their changes, as can mechanical instruments. Acupuncture points are located on the skin’s surface, but the meridians into which they open travel deep into the body and through every organ and muscle group. Your meridians are energetic bloodstream your body.
Each of the twelve meridians is actually part of a single energy pathway that passes through the body, comes to the surface twelve times, and appears in twelve parts. Each part was named after the main body or the system it serves. The two additional energy pathways, called the central and control pathways, are also referred to as the meridians. Because they have common features with unusual flows, the central and the control are considered meridians and strange flows. The other twelve meridians form a chain in which one meridian is connected. The central and control meridians open more directly to the environment. The energies that surround you through them can both go in and out. Ancient Chinese maps of the meridian system correspond to what I see when I look at the body. In the West, they were initially rejected because they had no known anatomical connections. Radioactive isotopes, injected into acupuncture points, have now proved the existence of a system of thin tubes resembling conductive channels, approximately 0.5-1.5 microns in diameter, which follow ancient descriptions of meridians. In the research that followed, the paths of light revealed by infrared photography show how accurate the maps described in ancient writings were. The acupuncture points located along the meridian are compared to the amplifiers located along the telephone cable, amplifying the signal to proceed to the next amplifier. Meridians affect every organ and every physiological system, nervous system, endocrine system, circulatory system, respiratory, digestive system, bone, muscle, and lymph system. At least one meridian feeds each system. As an artery carries blood, a meridian carries energy. As the body’s energy bloodstream, meridians transmit strength and balance, remove obstacles, adjust metabolism, and even determine cellular changes’ rate and shape. Their flow is as important as the flow of blood; your life and health depend on both. If the meridian’s energy is obstructed or disorganized, the system that feeds the meridian is compromised.
If you think of meridians as a transmission system of energy, a complex transport network, you have a real pattern based on which the meridians’ energies interact. When a free road becomes blocked, it may be necessary to divert some traffic to another road. It may be necessary to clear or widen the slope along the road. If the highway or meridian is occupied by too much energy, as happens in the confusion of everyday life, a bottleneck is created. Aids needed to maintain the community or body are also hampered. It becomes difficult to deliver food and dispose of waste. Likewise, if a highway is damaged in an earthquake, even the most important maintenance services that make up a community resilience system, such as police, firefighters, and ambulances, cannot function properly. Because our body is in use twenty-four hours every day, day in and day out, and because it is subject to constant stress and experiences occasional earthquakes, its pathways need regular maintenance and repairs, as well as occasional major renewal.
BALANCING YOUR MERIDIANS
Disorders of energy meridians are interrelated with poor health. The amount of light emitted by the meridians of laboratory animals decreased when the animals were sick and increased when acupuncture began to improve their physical condition. Because disturbed meridian energies often precede disease, meridian manifestations are sometimes used to predict health disorders and prevent disease.
Balancing the meridians means making them flow smoothly and efficiently.
This can be achieved in several ways:
1. Track your own meridians
2. Rinse clogged meridians
3. rotate and stretch certain points associated with each meridian
4. massage the neurolymph points of the meridian
5. press or tap certain acupuncture points located at the ends of the meridians
MERIDIAN MONITORING
Because the human body’s major structures, including the meridians, evolved millions of years ago, these structures evolved to support a body that was adapting to a significantly different world than the one we encounter today. Therefore, it is not surprising that the pathways of your body’s energy transmission system can cross one over the other or deliver too much energy to one organ and not enough to another. The sources of stress we face every day tend to trigger our most vulnerable meridians to frantic and excessive action or, on the other hand, to shut down literally. When this excessive action or closure is repeated, other meridians, trying to make up for the imbalance, fall into a crisis pattern. In the chain reaction that follows, your entire energy transmission system can become inefficient by draining your life force, and you remain exhausted and susceptible to all kinds of diseases. The strategy of waiting until our bodies evolve enough to fit our way of life, a process that typically takes billions of years, could be impractical. However, human adaptation does not rely solely on genetic mutation. We are learning. Meridian tracking is one of the simplest and most successful ways to correct the discrepancy between your genetic programming and the demands of the environment. Regardless of the pressures, stress, and new circumstances that may overwhelm your meridian system, if you can keep energy highways open, keep traffic jams to a minimum, maintain import and source systems, remove stagnant energy, and bring in fresh energy supplies,,, you will be healthier.
Because your meridians, like your arms, carry electromagnetic and subtler energies, you can influence their flow by following them, keeping your hands in direct contact with your body or a few inches above it. Energy will follow your hand, and the flow of energy along the orbit of the meridian will be stronger. By following the meridians every day, you can direct traffic in your energy transmission system. You can communicate with him, a language he understands, that the flow of energies along their natural pathways is more efficient than random crisis reactions. You can track your entire meridian system in two minutes, which is a procedure you can perform daily or whenever you feel the need. If you know that one of your meridians needs special attention, you can monitor that meridian several times each day. You can also add meridian tracking to your daily energy exercises.
ENERGY MERIDIANS
One of the most important tools you can develop to help you take care of your own health is to examine energy flow through the meridians. Meridian testing allows you to make healthy decisions based on your body’s actual needs. Meridians are connected to the organ and energy system and the muscles, which are the basis of energy testing.
You can actually start with any meridian and continue in order. Also, you can get an extra boost if you start on the most sensitive meridian. Therefore, after the central and control meridians, start with the spleen meridian or any other suggested by your intuition. The Chinese usually start with the lungs’ meridian because it takes in the breath.
Dear readers ”, the following instructions will show you how to follow all fourteen meridians.
Central meridian
Place both hands on your pubic bone and lift them straight up, along your body, to your upper lip.
The steering meridian
Put one hand on the tail bone and move your arm straight along your spine, as high as you can. Reach over your shoulder and try to touch the arm that is rising. If your hands can’t meet, connect them with your mind. Then, with your hand that you have transferred over your shoulder, follow the energy the rest of the way, along your spine, over your head, over your nose, to your upper lip.
Spleen meridians
Start at the outer corners of both toes and move straight up along the inside of the feet, rising at the hips, along the ribs, and then down again.
The meridian of the heart
Place the open hand under the armpit of the opposite hand in the direction of your little finger and follow straight down the hands and down the little finger. Make on both hands.
The small intestine meridian
Turn your hand and, starting with the little finger, move it straight along the outside of the hand towards the shoulder, go down a little down the shoulder blade, go over the jaw to the opening of the ear. Make on both sides.
The meridian of the bladder
Place both hands between the eyebrows, run them over the crown of the head and down the head and neck. Remove your hands from the neck, reach for them backward, as high as you can stretch along the spine. Follow your hands down either side of your spine to below the waist, move slightly toward the waist, and then down the middle of the buttocks. Leave the meridian there and return to the shoulders, going straight down the legs, with a small turn on the knee, to the heel, and down the edge of the foot to the little toe. Repeat on the other side.
Kidney meridians
Place your toes under each foot’s feet, the middle, on a line that could be drawn between the first and second toes. Pull your toes toward the inside of each leg, circle around both ankles, climb straight along the inside of the leg, then the front of the torso point below the collarbone at the top of the sternum. Vigorously massage these points.
The circulation-sex meridian
Place the fingers of one hand on the outside of the opposite side of the chest, next to the nipple, move it over the shoulder, on the inside of the hand, down the hands, and the middle finger. Make on both sides.
Meridian of a three-part heater
Turn your hand and starting from the ring finger, follow the meridian straight along the outside of the hand to the area behind the ear, then around the ear, ending at the temple. Make on both sides.
The gallbladder meridian
Place the fingers of both hands on the outside of the eyebrows, lower yourself to the opening of the ear, lift the fingers straight up about five inches, circle forward, and then lower yourself behind the ears. Head up to the forehead again, back down the head’s crown down the shoulders. From this point, move your arms to both sides of the ribs, toward the inside, then return outward to the waist, descend to the hips, then straight down the outside of the legs, then down the fourth toe.
Liver meridian
Place your toes on the inside of your big toe, moving straight toward your wrist, then the inside of your feet, on your hips outward, with your ribs inward, to the point that is at the nipple line.
Lung meridian
Place one hand over the opposite side of the lungs and move it over the shoulder, straight down the inside of the hand and down the thumb.
The meridian of the colon
Place the open fingers of one hand on the tip of the index finger of the opposite hand, follow straight along the arm to the shoulder, across the neck to under the nose, and then slightly obliquely to the outer edge of the nostril. Make on both sides.
The meridian of the stomach
Put both hands under the eyes, go down to the jaw, make a circle with the outer edge of the face to the forehead; move your hands to the jaw, then down the neck to the collarbone, slightly outward, and then down the chest; below the chest, move your arms slightly inward to the feet, then slightly outward and straight down the legs and the other toe.
Instead of memorizing each meridian’s paths, I suggest you record the above instructions on tape and let it guide you. Read slowly, and where it says “do the same on the other side,” read the same instructions a second time. Just as a regular exercise begins by following the central and control meridians and the spleen meridians, it ends by following those same meridians to repeat and strengthen the circulation. Therefore, for the second time, add instructions for tracking these three meridians, first the spleen meridian, then the central, then the control.
You can actually start with any meridian and continue in order. Also, you can get an extra boost if you start on the most sensitive meridian. Therefore, after the central and control meridians, start with the spleen meridian or any other suggested by your intuition. The Chinese usually start with the lungs’ meridian because it takes in the breath. It can start with the spleen meridian. First of all, the spleen meridian supplies the most important energy to the resistance system, and it affects each meridian. This meridian corrects chemical imbalances and difficulties around the blood supply. If you are sick or do not have enough energy, the spleen meridian will be weak. Tracking the spleen meridians as the first lay a strong foundation for tracking the other meridians. Daily monitoring of the meridians will help you maintain health and well-being. However, the meridian can be so preoccupied with heroic efforts that it restores balance to the organs it controls, or it can be weakened and closed that mere tracking will not return it to its natural course. The rest of this chapter will teach you how to identify and correct such imbalances.
Meridians act like the organs they serve
Each meridian flows through at least one organ or physiological system and serves them. Just as the kidneys themselves’ action is purification, so is the action of the meridians of the kidneys. The meridian of the kidney purifies the toxic energy, allowing the energies that have been blocked to start moving again. I will work with the kidney meridian when I want to “flush” a certain system, e.g., if my lymphatic system seems sluggish, if I feel the tension in my back, if energy is blocked below my waist, or if my body is sick. The kidneys’ meridian purifies the body’s energies, and they become fresh, clear, and lively, and the energy of the kidneys is renewed. The first points on the kidney meridian, on the feet, are called the points of the source of life. The kidney meridian contains the life force of onset and renewal.
Meridian energy testing
One of the most important tools you can develop to help you take care of your own health is to examine energy flow through the meridians. Meridian testing allows you to make healthy decisions based on your body’s actual needs. The meridians are connected to the organ and the energy system, and the muscles, which are the basis of energy testing.
Interesting, though insignificant, is the notice that the meridian does not necessarily flow through the muscle it affects. Therefore, if you study the traditional muscle tests used in applied kinesiology or the Touch to Health method, you will find that the meridian you are testing does not always flow through the muscle to which it is connected. Although the meridian and muscle can separate (as the limbs grow, for example), the original relationship between them remains unchanged. Energy bridges the physical abyss, and energy testing takes advantage of this enduring relationship. Although there are energy tests for each meridian, and they are necessary for more advanced work, a simpler way to test the meridians is to use a simple test – a general indicator and specific “alarm points” (see drawing). Alarm points are acupuncture points that act as circuit breakers in the meridian system. The alert is activated when attention is needed. There is an alarm point on each meridian or two such points. When too much energy flows through the meridian, the meridian turns on the alarm points, interrupting energy flow. When you find an alarm point on, somewhere along the meridian or in the organ that the meridian serves, there is an energy disturbance. If such disorders become chronic, they are precursors of the disease.
Examination of alarm points can tell you whether the meridians’ energies are overloaded, weakened, disturbed, or sluggish. When touching the alert point weakens the muscle on which you perform the test, the alert point says, “Pay attention.” When the crisis passes, it is necessary to restart the point that acts as a circuit breaker. Once upon a time, when people lived more naturally, I believe we intuitively felt imbalances caused by bodily alarm reactions. We instinctively knew how to correct them through touch and massage. Today, we are exposed to a much larger number of sources of stress, which are constantly triggering our alert system. We have lost touch with our instinct to re-establish balance.
You can quickly test all fourteen meridians using alarm points. Examine the steering, then the middle meridian, and then proceed with the other twelve meridians, finding the alert points as shown in the drawing and described here. The first eight alert points are on a line that extends straight down the middle of your body.
Steering – the tip of the nose; central – the center of the chin; circulation-sex – the middle between the nipples; heart – the lower end of the sternum; stomach – halfway between the bottom of the sternum and the navel; three-part heater – two and a half inches below the navel; small intestine – two and a half inches lower; bladder – another two and a half inches lower. There are other alert points in the pair, and you have to examine each side. Return to the upper body. Lungs – Rotate your thumbs to where they naturally settle on the upper outer edge of your chest, near where your hands join your body. Liver – descend in a straight line down the nipple, one rib below the chest. Gallbladder – go down about two and a half inches to the ribs’ lower edge. Spleen – Keep your hands sideways on the ribs, then lower them straight down until you reach the last rib. It is the only “floating rib” of our body. Kidney – follow the ribs another two and a half inches towards the back; the point is located at the lower rib’s top. Colon – place your fingers on the navel and move them two and a half inches on either side of the navel.
Correcting imbalances in the meridians
If the hand proves weak during the alarm point’s energy test, it means that there are disturbances in the energies flowing along this meridian. They can be caused by reactions to something around you, a temporary physiological condition, such as indigestion or inflammation, emotional distress, or, if the imbalance is chronic, it could indicate illness. But since many bodily needs are cared for by multiple systems that overlap with each other, a single meridian by itself rarely causes the disease; the disease is usually disintegrated over a wider area. The significance of the energy test also relates to the length of the period during which the problem exists, which meridians are still out of balance, as well as to your overall health. Regardless, it’s successful to learn how to correct existing imbalances before you even peek into their meaning. The following procedures will build a stronger energy field and strengthen your overall health. Establish a strong energy field, and thus you will resist any disease. So far, you have tracked your meridians to cleanse and strengthen them, and you have energetically tested all fourteen meridians to determine if any of them are still out of balance. If the meridian does not respond to tracking, this usually indicates a chronic pattern rather than a transient disturbance. There are several additional ways you can correct such chronic difficulties, including the following four procedures: stretch and rotate the alert points, wash the meridian, massage the neurolymphatic points of the meridians; press the acupuncture points to strengthen a particular meridian.
