The first indicator of success is involvement. Curiosity about the process, noticing and valuing the results of the work, and a desire to reproduce the results are all signs of a person who wants to participate in his own healing.

A willing participant is generally glad to adopt the second indicator of success: repetition. It often takes a long time for imbalanced energy patterns to build and they don’t shift in a quick fix. The slow and steady process of working with the energy on a daily basis is key to transforming imbalances.

And finally, the successful energy client recognizes that partnering with one’s own energy is a lifestyle choice and is willing to make that commitment. Do meditators ask "how many meditations before I’m enlightened?" Do marathoners quit their daily running after a race? Of course not. These are lifestyle choices with a commitment to the process. And so it is in working with our energy. We’re never finished. There’s always so much more to learn from it. Once you realize this, there’s no going back. You and your energy have committed to a lifelong relationship.

Due to the nature of the western medical model, few of us have been asked to be active participants in our health. In contrast, energy awareness requires us to be active participants in our wellness. A session with an energy practitioner can be enormously helpful in assessing and correcting imbalances, but it is only complete when the work is continued as part of a lifestyle.

The last issue of the Energy Community Report was so well received that we decided not only to do another issue that shares Donna Eden’s teachings, but also to take on a big topic. This issue addresses meridians and, in particular, energy exercises you can do to balance individual meridians and the meridian system. Page numbers are references to Donna’s book, Energy Medicine, where you can find additional information on the topic. If you are new to this work, reading Chapter 4, "The Meridians", will help you better understand the material in this issue.

Half of the meridians are covered in this issue. The rest will be in the next issue which you will receive in September.

You can work on a meridian by holding its strengthening/sedating acupuncture points (pp. 120 - 123), working its neurolymphatics (pp. 84 - 85), or holding its neurovasculars (pg. 274). Tapping on a meridian’s endpoints (pg. 313) pulses energy through it and balances it.

Instructions for holding strengthening points are found on page 118. Adapt the instructions for holding triple warmer sedating points (pg. 236) by substituting the sedating points for the meridian you want to sedate using the illustrations on pp. 120 - 123.

A good starting point for determining the state of meridians is to test the alarm points (pg. 113). How do you decide where to start when many meridians test weak? Chart the meridians that test weak on the Rhythms of the Seasons Wheel (pg. 210). The meridians on the outside of the circle (small intestine, triple warmer, stomach, large intestine, bladder, gall bladder) are the Yang meridians, whereas those inside the circle (heart, circulation sex, spleen, lungs, kidneys, liver) are Yin. Working on the Yin always supports the Yang so work on the imbalanced Yin first and the others often self-correct. Retest the alarm points after using correction techniques to see what remains to be worked on.

If you can’t get energy on a meridian by working directly on that meridian, i.e. the various corrections don’t strengthen it, the meridian that feeds it may be so depleted that it has nothing to give. Look at the Meridian Flow Wheel (pg. 126) and notice the meridian that precedes it (e.g. spleen precedes heart and heart precedes small intestine). This is the meridian that feeds it (pg. 271). Try working with that meridian. Another reasonable approach is to work on the meridian that’s opposite the one that won’t balance on the Meridian Flow Wheel. When one has too much energy, its opposite is often being drained.

Exercise: Work on the chakras (pg. 167) to help the meridians stay balanced. Chakras support the meridians.

Exercise: As you get to know the various acupuncture points through sedating and strengthening meridians, get in the habit of rubbing the points and noticing if they’re sore. If they are, massage deeply the neurolymphatics for that meridian (pp. 84 - 85).

Problems in a meridian may be caused by the metal in a tooth filling. Look at the tooth chart on page 287 to determine whether the teeth that govern problematic meridians have metal in them.

Exercise: To keep all your meridians going in the right direction and to activate them to move on their own, do Drying Off (pg. 249). With your palm facing your body, put your hand on the outside of the opposite big toe. Move it up the inside of your body and the inside of your arm, then down the outside of your arm, the outside of your body, and off the little toe. Repeat on the opposite side. This is a good exercise to do in your daily routine until you learn how to trace the meridians (pg. 98).

Exercise: Holding all of the neurovasculars on the head (pg. 274) feeds the meridians. You can always hold multiple neurovasculars concurrently, but it’s interesting to hold them individually and notice how it feels.

Exercise: If you know a meridian is chronically weak, flush it frequently. Trace it backwards once to remove stale and excess energy, then trace it forward three times to bring in fresh energy. The meridian pathways are found on pp. 100 - 110.

Exercise: If a meridian is overenergized, e.g. when there’s pain, trace it backwards. Stress indicates an overenergized triple warmer, so tracing triple warmer backwards is one way to address stress. Holding acupuncture sedating points also removes excess energy.

An appliance in the body, e.g. a hip or knee replacement can interfere with energy moving through a meridian.

Exercise: Take a cow magnet (found in a feed or hardware store) and trace the meridian using the magnet’s north side (pg. 301) to pull the energy across the appliance. Or just use your hand, which is electro-magnetic, and tap a few times to get the energy going if it stops moving.

Exercise: If you’re having a problem with an organ, do the inch worm (pg. 273) on the meridian associated with that organ. Walk along the meridian with your fingers, using pressure. Massage wherever it hurts.

Central meridian is about any kind of vulnerability. It touches every emotion and brings clarity to your personal emotional stuff.

Central and governing are both strange flows (pg. 243) and meridians. They affect everything, so when you trace meridians start with central and governing and end with central and governing. Any exercise that strengthens central meridian also activates central strange flows and through it all other strange flows.

Test: Touch below the bottom lip and energy test. If weak, strengthen central meridian.

Exercise: To strengthen central meridian, bend your elbows out to the side and push your palms into each other in front of your chest.

Exercise: You can strengthen central meridian and also activate the strange flows by massaging the central neurolymphatics up and down the torso at the arm seam (pg. 85).

Exercise: Zip up (pg. 82)

Exercise: Tapping the end point of central meridian below the bottom lip often strengthens central meridian. If it doesn’t, putting the thumb under the chin and the bent index finger from the same hand over the chin will pull that central meridian energy up. This exercise will help any work on the throat to hold.

Governing meridian travels up the spine (pg. 101). It sends energy up the spine and helps pump the cerebrospinal fluid. It deals with courage and moving forward. It’s about standing in your space and being grounded. It is common in our culture for many governing meridians to stop at the 3rd eye rather than going over the nose and connecting with central at the back of the throat.

Test: Touch the spine and energy test.

Exercise: If the test is weak, suck your thumb and hook your index finger over your nose. Retest by touching and testing all along governing meridian on the spine and across the head.

Test: Push into the notch at the bottom of the skull at the spine. Test.

Exercise: Partner lies face down. Cross your arms. Put one hand on the spine just above the waist and the fingers or heel of your other hand on the sacrum. Push hands apart, slowly moving the upper hand up the spine until it reaches the notch on the head where you just tested. Hold. This exercise also helps build up the energy in the spinal column.

Exercise: When mustering your courage to deal with something in life, it helps if you put your hands behind your back, across your waist and grab on to the opposite arm. Hold that position for as long as it feels right. Like many energy techniques, often we do them instinctively when we need them, not realizing the energetic benefit. This is also a way to balance governing if it tests weak.

Spleen meridian deals with metabolizing foods, thoughts, pollutants - anything that comes into your body.

Generally, spleen is the meridian that loses more energy than any other meridian because its opposite force on the Meridian Flow Wheel (pg. 126) is triple warmer. Spleen gets depleted by triple warmer faster than any other meridian. If there’s stress in your life, triple warmer sucks the energy away from spleen. Your energy gets more and more depleted.

Spleen is a real life force. It’s also a strange flow. Work on spleen to help resolve infections.

It doesn’t matter if a particular food is the best food in the world for you. If your body can’t metabolize it and can’t break it down, it’s just another poison. You have to get spleen strong.

Spleen shares an element with stomach - the Earth element. Notice on the Meridian Flow Wheel (pg. 126) that stomach precedes spleen; it flows into spleen. Like triple warmer, stomach is about stress. Stomach is about the daily grind whereas triple warmer is about the bigger stresses of life. You can see where spleen can get into trouble easily because the two meridians that deal with stress are trying to give it energy and might not have anything to give.

Exercise: When you’re starting to feel sick, thump spleen neurolymphatics points (pg. 68, 51). This can knock something out that’s just getting going. It can get rid of a fever and balance out your temperature. It also helps everything metabolize. It affects not only spleen meridian, but all the other meridians as well. It also gets spleen strange flows going, which hyperlinks into all the strange flows.

Exercise: If thumping spleen doesn’t make it strong, do Smooth Behind the Ears (pg. 235) to calm triple warmer. Triple warmer has all the energy. This exercise sedates triple warmer which then sends the energy over to spleen.

Exercise: Scratching the back activates spleen meridian and spleen strange flows.

Exercise: To strengthen spleen:

1. Stretch your arms straight over your head.
2. Turn your palms forward and grab one wrist.
3. Lean straight to the left, stretching your right side.
4. Lean in the opposite direction.

Stomach meridian (ST)

Donna Eden: "I find that when I sedate stomach, everything seems to fall into place."

For chronic sinus issues, work on stomach meridian.

Exercise: All of the neck muscles in the front and some in the back are governed by stomach meridian. Sedate stomach meridian (pg. 120) for neck pain.

Exercise: Push your fingers up on the ST-1 points on the cheekbone underneath the eyeballs while softly holding the neurovasculars points at the jaw with your thumbs (pg. 274, #8). This begins to release excess energy and bring some balance into stomach meridian.

Exercise: For jet lag, sometimes it’s enough to do two things to stomach meridian. Tap ST-1 on the cheekbone just under the eyeball (pg. 238), then trace stomach meridian (pg. 109). Stomach meridian is on the Earth element. It helps you balance and stabilize. Sometimes doing this is all you need to avoid jet lag or to clear your energy if you feel like you’re picking something up while traveling.

Kidney meridian (K) governs getting rid of toxins.

Exercise: In most cases when you work with kidney, sedate it (pg. 121). It’s trying to get rid of toxins and is constantly filtering. Sedating takes the stress off of it. But every now and then strengthening it is great to flush fresh energy through.

Exercise: Anything you do with K-1 (pg. 111) is good. Hold it, massage it, pump it. This acupuncture point is called the Wellspring of Life. Working on the K-1 points both gives energy and releases it and it really helps the strange flows move. Whatever needs to let go will often let go. This point and kidney sedating points (pg. 121) in particular bring a balance into the body.

Exercise: The K-1 Wave

1. With your partner lying face up, put a thumb or finger on K-1, just below the center of the ball of each foot.
2. Hold and then gently wave for 2 or 3 minutes, slowly pushing your weight into the point and then releasing.
3. The K-1 Wave energizes kidney meridian, so it is not indicated if kidney is already overenergized.

Exercise: To help eyesight, it is important to get kidney energy swooshing through the eyes. Thumping or rubbing the K-27 points (pg. 63) sends energy to the eyes.

Bladder meridian (BL) governs the nervous system. When something is off in the nervous system, it is reflected in bladder meridian. Working with bladder helps the nerves learn how to be.

Bladder is always involved in arthritis and in oversensitivity.

The bladder meridian goes down the back (pg. 104), so back problems may involve bladder. However weak upper abdominals, which are governed by small intestine, can cause back problems when there isn’t enough strength between the front and the back. So there’s a playoff between small intestine and bladder. [KMK1] Work on both bladder and small intestine for back problems.

Donna Eden 5-Day Basic. Miami Beach, August 5 – 10. Participants will enjoy learning energy medicine in a luscious setting. Participants will enjoy tropical breezes, ocean dips, and a beautiful pool in a fully air-conditioned luxury resort right on the beach. Encourage friends and family to attend and also consider attending a second time -- many people have -- and there is a $100 discount the second time around. For more information, visit www.innersource.net, and go to "Classes."

Conference Works Classes. These weekend classes have been an amazing hit in opening people to Energy Medicine and Energy Psychology. They are drawing 200 to 400 people to each event, yet they are intimate and people love them.  Coming up are St. Louis (9/30 – 10/2), Irvine (11/11 – 11/13), and Cape Cod (12/2 – 12/4). Encourage your family and friends in these areas to get themselves there. Again, see
www.innersource.net.