It is customary at the start of a New Year to review the previous year and resolve to do better. Doing better might mean losing weight, spending more time with family, improving finances or becoming self-employed. Some people are able to take action right away and receive positive reinforcement: one of my clients raised her rates for BodyTalk by 50% and got more clients. Many others end up with back and knee problems. Why?

The obvious connection is that moving forward requires the commitment of the hips and knees, so if there is lack of goal setting and/or commitment to those goals, the tension between the proclaimed resolution and the lack of action accumulates in back and knees - these areas literally need to cooperate if we are to move forward.

From a TCM perspective there is a deeper connection underneath this simple observation. January is the time when the Gall Bladder muscle meridian is most active. So if we have issues with our Gall Bladder energy, the areas ruled by the Gall Bladder meridian, particularly the sacrum and lower back, as well as the knees, will act up in January. This is right when we are struggling to keep our New Year's resolutions.

One of the predictors of Gall Bladder health in adulthood is the amount of criticism you receive as a child. Raising a child to have initiative, drive, and attention to detail is a balancing act. Too little correction and the child doesn't learn to notice errors and improve. Too little praise or over-zealous criticism can destroy initiative. Procrastination is actually a form of timidity and often comes from deficient Gall Bladder Qi. This pattern is associated with being conditioned to expect criticism in childhood. When the Gall Bladder Qi becomes weak, you tend to avoid criticism of your work by doing less.

When I was practicing acupuncture and herbs, I always stocked up on a herbal Gall Bladder tonic during January, as all of my clients with weak Gall Bladder Qi would show up with complaints then. The formula was aptly named Rising Courage Pills, because when the Gall Bladder is weak there is no courage in new decisions, new directions, or New Year's resolutions.

Now instead of using herbs to deal with timidity and lack of courage that comes up in January, and simply getting people through the month, this understanding makes it a great time to be working with Gall Bladder belief systems. It is an especially fruitful time to be working with people's issues around having courage or being afraid of making mistakes, and any childhood expectations that may feed these fears. Change at this level aids courage, allowing me to help my clients' not just get through the January but the entire year, every year.

Explore this question with Dr Ka'imi Pilipovich, author of the current Module 3 manual.  

BodyTalk Module 3 

Boulder Colorado

25th - 27th March 2011 

Understanding the psychology of the body is the core of really 'getting' your BodyTalk practice. Module 3 is in many ways the heart of the BodyTalk system yet is one of the most misunderstood modules.
 

Consciousness can be defined simply as being awake and responsive to your environment. Yet even 'awake', why do we still act in ways that are unaware or unconscious? Understanding these concepts fully will not only increase your abilities as a practitioner but will be an essential skill in your own personal development. 

• What Innate REALLY is and how best to work with it.
• Psychological profiles of body parts and diseases.
• Belief systems and how they form.
• The 5 senses and our perception of the world.
• Major issues surrounding spiritual growth.
• How to incorporate Consciousness into you all of your sessions.
   

• Move past the limitations of rigid beliefs.
• Be vulnerable and live life more fully.
• Heal your split mind.

 Consciousness as a topic is very difficult to define and is often avoided as it raises many hard questions, not the least of which is the challenge of determining the connection between mind (or consciousness) and the body.
 

Dr Pilipovich is the author of the current Module 3 manual and is renown for his ability to explain these difficult to understand concepts in an approachable way.  

Its been over 18 months since Ka'imi has taught Module 3 in North America and currently has no plans to teach this module again in 2011. Don't miss this opportunity to learn the BodyTalk essentials from the man who wrote the book on it!   

Course fee $675US. New Student Early Bird discount available if paid in full by 25th February 2011. 

For more details and to register please go to

www.ibaglobalhealing.com

For payments please visit our online store at www.bodytalkunlimited.com  

Kathleen Collins from Ashland, OR wrote in with these questions regarding a persons' electromagnetic fields.

I would like to know how damage to a persons' electromagnetic field might come up in a session.

This relates more to Wei Qi than anything else. Wei Qi is an aspect of the electromagnetic field that is generated by the body which insulates the body from the environment. This is not absolute insulation but an intelligent boundary between the person and the world. This can include protection from emotions, physical injury and climate, or sensitivity to electromagnetic field such as your TV, computer or cell phone.

Module 4(7) explicitly addresses Wei Qi, providing more direct ways of balancing this, but it helps to understand that a persons' attitudes are one of the things that affect the strength and intelligence of the body's electromagnetic protection fields, or Wei Qi. So you could theoretically balance it by linking to EMF's in the environment. This would address some kind of an involvement or fear around the electromagnetic field. Using the birth vivaxis balancing may make a person feel more at home in their environment. This in turn can affect the persons Wei Qi by shifting their attitudes and feelings about where they are. Anything that strengthens the overall energy of the person could improve the functioning of the Wei Qi and improve the balance in their surface electrical field. The short answer would be that anything can actually balance susceptibility or sensitivity to electromagnetic field in the environment.

What is the difference between Wei Qi and the electromagnetic field? If there is no difference, then reciprocals would address the issue?
 

They aren't exactly the same but they are similar. The electromagnetic field generated by the body is something we can actually measure and we know goes out quite a long way.  The heart energy field can be measured some distance off the body and you can measure the thoughts happening in the brain as disturbance in the electromagnetic field of in the person as much as 1 meter off the brain, suggesting that the electromagnetic field generated by the body is actually quite large.

The Wei Qi is thought to be a boundary layer of energy within the electromagnetic field of the body that in a healthy person exists up to approximately 2 inches from the skin. It can be much thinner or in some cases completely absent. You could call this injury to the electromagnetic field but is it also considered a gap or hole in the Wei Qi. With Modules 1&2 you could balance this using anything, as mentioned above, but the reciprocals would be a great idea as the reciprocals help to balance the acupuncture meridians as well as balance the flow of energy along the surface of the body which includes the Wei Qi.So balancing the reciprocals could be a way to restore that energy field.