Nearly fifteen years ago Donna Eden and her husband David Feinstein left Ashland to begin a world wide book tour that has… well, never really ended. Their first book, Energy Medicine, has been translated into 18 languages and they now have a four-year professional training program. On December 11th Donna Eden will be
returning to Ashland to present a three-hour introduction to her form of energy work which has become world-reknowned. The event is hosted by three of Donna’s Certified Eden Energy Medicine Practitioners and Instructors, Janie Chandler, Debra Hurt-Burchard and Karen Parnell.
Janie, will you please tell us about the exciting opportunity for Ashlanders to meet and reconnect with Donna Eden when she returns to Ashland this December?
Many long-time residents of Ashland may remember that Donna Eden and David Feinstein lived here for over 20 years before they took off in 1999 on the “book tour that’s never ended”. Since then they’ve been traveling all over the world teaching and lecturing about energy medicine, and founding the Eden Energy Medicine Certification Program. It’s an especially joyful occasion for them when they get to share their work with the old-home community. During this three-hour event, Donna will be talking about and demonstrating the basics of energy medicine as she uses it and teaches it to students around the world. Her presentations are always fun, informative and surprising. For those who had the opportunity to catch her last time she presented here in Ashland (in 2010), this class will be much the same – an introduction to Eden Energy Medicine.
Debra, can you please give us a little background and overview to energy medicine?
Eden Energy Medicine is one of several “children” of Dr. John Thie’s program known as Touch for Health. John Thie was a chiropractor who worked closely with Dr. George Goodheart who is considered by many to be the “father of kinesiology.” Dr. Thie created Touch for Health for the lay person who wanted to be able to support the health and well-being of themselves and their family members, using simple, effective techniques to keep the body’s subtle energies balanced. Donna trained as a Touch for Health teacher in the seventies, bringing her unique skill set and ability to see the body’s subtle energies to the process. Her subsequent years of working with clients and training individuals and practitioners gave her a further education that helped her to develop her current programs. Eden Energy Medicine is a comprehensive program of energy balancing techniques that can help individuals prevent or respond to almost any kind of health crisis. It’s easy to learn and simple to implement… what could be better!
Karen, Donna’s book Energy Medicine has been published in 18 different languages, and she and her husband David Feinstein have been traveling around the world teaching energy medicine for the past 14 years. Can you comment?
I think it is remarkable how, through Donna and David’s book Energy Medicine and through their travels, these simple techniques are now available worldwide to a multitude of people. In an age when medical costs are sky rocketing and a predominant conversation is supposedly about health care (but is actually about “illness management”) Donna and David’s work in the field of energy medicine has empowered thousands of people to take their health and healing into their own hands – quite literally. It’s pretty awesome to think that this worldwide effect had its beginnings here in Ashland.
Janie, lets talk about your own involvement with the work. Both you and Debra are long term faculty members and Karen is a recent graduate of the two-year certification program. You all live in Ashland where you are work with local clients and teach classes.
Yes, Debra and I are both founding faculty members of Donna’s certification program which started out as a two-year course and now has three levels of achievement. We are both Advanced Practitioners with private practices here in Ashland, and senior faculty members teaching locally and in other parts of the country. Debra began her studies with Donna back in 1986, and I joined the fray in 1999. When the certification program was launched in 2005 Debra and I were invited to be on the faculty, and since then we’ve discovered that we are a great team and we love teaching together. Karen came and studied with us in 2010 and got hooked, so she is now a certified practitioner, seeing clients and teaching Donna’s Energy Medicine 101 and 102 classes. There are a number of other current EEM students and certified practitioners in the area as well.
Debra, can you help demystify energy medicine by giving us some examples of how it can be used in a daily manner?
During her years in practice, Donna noticed that there were a core group of exercises that she would regularly use in her practice and give as supportive homework. This handful of techniques can be done in just a few minutes a day and help to keep all the body’s basic energies balanced. It’s as important as taking your vitamins every day! We call this collection of exercises the Daily Energy Routine. With cold and flu season coming up, it’s the best investment of time you could make to keep yourself healthy this winter! And for those who love to do things along with others, Vibrant Life has a great instructional video that shows these foundational techniques in many different settings. We’ll have those available at the event.
So, once I learn energy medicine is this something that I need to work with a practitioner to do, or is this something I can do myself?
Being responsible for our own health and well-being is basic to living a satisfying life. There are many techniques in EEM that one can do for oneself. In fact, Donna’s website offers many wonderful stories of how people have healed serious illnesses just by reading her book, Energy Medicine, and following her recommendations. That said, there are times when we all need a little extra help, or a different perspective on something that just doesn’t seem to be responding to using the basic techniques. That’s where the experience of a well trained practitioner can provide a great boost. It might only take one session to get someone back on track or, for more serious situations, it might take ongoing work. Even if one seeks out the help of a practitioner, they will be expected to participate in the process and do the homework they are given!
Deborah & Janie, you also teach the Foundations in Eden Energy Medicine course in Ashland. Will you please tell us a little bit about this?
The Foundations program is a year-long (four module) professional training in Donna’s form of energy medicine. It is designed to be a stand-alone training for people who are serious about enhancing their skills as care-givers with family and friends, or for people who already have a professional practice which they’d like to integrate with energy medicine, and it also serves as the first year of the two-year professional certification program. So people who are interested in becoming a Certified Eden Energy Medicine Practitioner can begin their studies here in Ashland, and complete the second year in Phoenix, Arizona.
We each teach our own flavor of energy medicine as well, and together we have produced two educational DVDs – The Visual Atlas of Energy Medicine, and An Energy Testing Tutorial. Since I come to this work as a massage therapist, one of my passions is teaching Interweaving Energy Medicine with Massage. The other program that I am excited about launching in March is The Vibrant Life System™ which is a great place for the lay person to begin to balance their energies through the applied studies of consciousness, energy medicine and nutrition. Debra will be teaching Donna’s Energy Medicine for Women in late January, as well as numerous other classes that draw from her training in other forms of energy techniques.
Janie, will you please share with us a brief story of how energy medicine has changed your life?
For a number of years I was dragging butt through life. I had all kinds of reasons to be happy, but I wasn’t feeling it. My brain was foggy, I was exhausted, I had low-grade chronic pain and everything I did felt like an effort. I loved my work, I loved my life, I loved my community, but I was not feeling energized, joyful or creative. When I began to learn – and apply – the techniques that Donna teaches, the fog began to lift, my vitality came back, my inspiration and creativity returned and I began to feel joyful and uplifted by life. What I know now is that for various reasons – the slings and arrows of life basically – my energies had become scrambled and had fallen into bad habits. By using the energy techniques, primarily on myself but through sessions with a practitioner too, I was able to reorganize my energies so that they were working optimally and I could be more responsive to life, rather than reactive.
Debra, having worked with Donna Eden to the extent that you have, what has been one of the greatest take-home point you have witnessed about Donna’s work, who she is as a person and how it changed the people she comes in contact with?
I have had the privilege of knowing and studying with Donna Eden since 1986. I have had the opportunity to see her work with clients, students, believers and skeptics and she consistently brings the same exuberance, curiosity, and connection to each and every one of them. Donna’s enthusiasm is contagious! Her passion for bringing the possibility of healing into the hands of the general populace is truly inspiring! And in twenty-six years that bright light hasn’t dimmed. Donna’s presence fills people with the optimism of possibility. People walk away from Donna feeling “seen” and “heard” as never before.
Karen, will you tell us about a recent implementation of Energy Medicine that has set a new course either for yourself or someone you are working with?
I want to preface this story with the clear statement that in Eden Energy Medicine we do not diagnose or treat illness. What we do is assess and balance energies which may be related to illness as it shows up in the physical body.
That said: I recently had a client come to see me because she had symptoms that were reminiscent of her bout with breast cancer 13 years past. Prior to that cancer diagnosis her breast had been extremely sore, tender and red. Her past engagement with cancer included a lumpectomy, chemo, radiation and a double mastectomy with reconstruction surgery, so you can imagine her concern when these symptoms appeared again.
Of course she scheduled an appointment with her oncologist, who, among other things, scheduled a biopsy. Before the biopsy she came to see me for an energy medicine session. During our first session I balanced her energies and chakra-cleared over her breast area. She noticed an immediate change the next morning in that the amount of redness and the tenderness had completely gone away. During our second session I balanced her energies, flushed meridians, and held neurovasculars (points on the head that affect blood flow). By the time she went in for the biopsy the surgeon found no redness and wondered what she was there for, but he did the procedure anyway, which was negative.
My client reported that “when Karen was clearing around the breast I could feel a tingling sensation, I felt flushed and I could sense energy moving in my body. When she held my neurovasculars I felt a lot of relief from my anxiety and felt a huge emotional release. My feeling is that I was able to let go of a lot of anxiety and fear and Karen instilled in me a trust in my body to allow it to clear and heal.”
Can you give us specific times and location for the upcoming workshop with Donna Eden?
Tuesday, December 11th from 6:30-9:30 at the Unitarian Universalist Church on 4th street in Ashland. Tickets are available through Brown Paper Tickets and cost $25.
Debra, any last notes on the upcoming event?
If you’ve seen Donna before you already know that this event will be lively, informative and CROWDED! If you haven’t seen Donna, don’t miss this opportunity. In 2012 we sold out two evening events, so I highly recommend that anyone who doesn’t want to miss this evening with Donna should buy tickets early to avoid disappointment.
