Ease your indigestion with this traditional Chinese technique
At least 80 percent of Americans are 'digestively challenged.' Despite
all that we do to eat well and manage stress, we remain a nation which
supports hundreds of brands of chalky-tasting antacids and laxatives. Could
it be that we're masking the symptoms of poor digestion and not dealing
with the underlying causes?
MOVING CHI
Gilles Marin, author of Healing From Within with Chi Nei Tsang (North Atlantic
Books 1999), believes that our bodies are constantly digesting emotional
charges that we feel at the visceral level. 'We process emotions the same
way we process food, and poor emotional digestion is one of the main reasons
for ill health,' Marin says.
What the esoteric massage technique, called Chi Nei Tsang (CNT, for short),
does is help a person become more aware of deep-seated tensions and remove
the blocks to free-flowing digestion. Loosely translated as 'inner organ
chi transformation,' CNT is based on Taoist practices and Traditional Chinese
Medicine. The therapy coaches a person through 'applied chi kung' which
raises both awareness and Chi, or vital energy. In Asian healing systems,
it is believed that the smooth movement of Chi and body fluids is paramount
in keeping a person healthy.
While CNT aids conditions such as constipation, indigestion, ulcers, menstrual
cramps and irritable bowel syndrome, Marin emphasizes that CNT is a holistic
therapy that doesn't work with labels or symptoms, but rather with the
reason why people have symptoms. 'We work at the level of information,
of emotional content, to digest emotional charges. By bringing to the surface
more awareness, true healing, which is synonymous with growing, can begin,
and a person can outgrow the reason for having to manifest symptoms,' he
says.
