REVIEW: Lauren Walker — The Energy to Heal (BOOK)
At first glance, Lauren Walker’s new nonfiction book may not be for everyone. As the title suggests, it eschews a hardline stance on the irrelevance of alternative, holistic, and homeopathic approaches to psychological trauma. Those who are firmly in the camp of medication, traditionalist psychotherapy, and traditionalist psychiatry may not appreciate the entirety of the book’s presumed topicality. But what The Energy to Heal: Find Lasting Freedom from Stress & Trauma Through Energy Medicine Yoga may not have for acute hardliners, it more than makes up for in terms of its actual, literary approach to the material.
ABOUT THE PROJECT: https://www.energymedicineyoga.net/
Walker never comes across as precious, or someone preachy in the style of the self-help guru cliché. She’s real, honest, and provides thoughtful, systematic observation and testimony to the particular brand of healing she’s developed called Energy Medicine Yoga (EMYoga). And across the board regardless of where you stand, what Walker christens as ‘energy medicine’ *is* starting to take the cultural fabric by storm.
More and more alternative therapies and methods are being implemented for at-risk youth, veterans, and those with mental health weaknesses and difficulties. There’s something of a seismic shift going on, which only throws a bone to books structured like Walker’s from beginning to end. There’s never a sense that there’s any proverbial, poetically waxing filler in any of the pages. It’s tightly constructed and concise, without any sense of meandering or tangents.
“If you want to heal your trauma, release your stress, and move into the life you truly want, you must be able to live fully in this world. Every day brings stress and triggers. To know how to process, move through, and release them is to move through life with ease so you can be engaged and excited. And so you can be at peace,” Walker writes straightforwardly. “…Everything that you see around you — everything — is simply vibration, sound, light, and attractive and repulsive forces, or polarity. The concept of energy has been taught for centuries in the most ancient healing systems on the planet, including two that we work with in EMYoga: Chinese medicine and ayurveda. You’ve likely heard the words chi, or qi, or prana. The Iroquois call it orenda. The Hopi call it catori. It’s been called spirit, life force, and vital principle. The ancient traditions have always known about this energy that animates the physical body. In fact, the inhaled breath is called inspiration, meaning ‘to bring spirit into the body.’”
By making things plainspoken and devoid of maudlin drivel, Walker then is able to explore the trippy aspects of the yoga and energy medicine healing phenomenon. It’s a smart move, as instantly starting with language choice and concepts like those featured in the aforementioned quote would automatically sanction the book to one, particular audience. But Walker has too much intelligence, integrity, and style to let that happen. “Everything in the universe is spinning. The galaxies, the planets, clouds, water, our own atoms, the blood in our veins. As things get more complex, they become more organized, but their expression is still rooted in spin,” she states. “…Although you feel solid, you are actually a latticework of energy systems. You are vibration and light. You are not separate from the fields of energy that make up the planet, the trees, the animals, the water, the rocks.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Energy-Heal-Lasting-Freedom-Medicine/dp/0738769495
You are simply one unique expression of the infinite potential of the universe. And because you are made up of spinning bits of energy — also known as chi, qi, prana, Plancks, life force — you also have the ability to change the vibration and patterns of your expression. You can change from a pattern of trauma to a pattern of joy.”
Colin Jordan
