The thing I like about Chinese Medicine is it can help you reconnect with yourself. And if you’re on the path of personal self-realization, it can help you find your way there. It does that through the Ancient theory of Chinese Medicine and the hidden meaning surrounding the channels and organs. In this article, you’ll find the spiritual essence to fix chronic back pain.
When it comes to chronic back pain, it all starts with one of the twelve channels or meridians in Chinese Medicine. The bladder channel is the longest channel in Chinese Medicine. It starts at the eye and travels upwards over the head, down the back of the neck, down the back, down the back of the legs, along the outside side of the ankle, all the way to the little toe.
This is the bladder channel. This channel isn’t a line that splits your body in half. No, the channel has two separate channels, one on each side of the spine and then straight down the legs. So, the channel is not in the bone, but in the muscle that supports the bone. The muscle that allows the bones to move, the muscle that keeps us moving forward. That muscle.
You know, a long time ago, I learned how to test to see if back pain was in the muscles or in the bone. Most of the time, like 95% of the time, the pain was in the muscles. If the patient could relax the muscles, the pain would go away.
So, you spend time with the acupuncturist, the masseuse, the chiropractor, the physical therapist. All of this to get relief from back pain, but it would always come back. And, you would go to your Western doctor, and the doctor would say something like, “Yes, you’re getting older, that happens.” Most of the time, you never think to question any of this.
Well, this got me thinking because in Chinese Medicine, they say the only way you can release disease is by letting go of the energetic bond you have to the dis-ease. And in Chinese Medicine, they believe everything is a clue to your life puzzle.
And for chronic back pain, the clue is the bladder channel. This is the channel that travels along the sides of the spine and down the center of the legs to end at the little toe of the foot.
The bladder channel is the first line of defense from the outside world. Weakness in this channel can be the reason for catching colds, or experiencing allergies. The bladder channel is full of that magical essence called Wei Qi which protects the body from things that could harm it. To learn about ways to build up your Wei Qi check out my Youtube Playlist, “Simple Techniquest to Keep Your Immune System Strong.”
There are some great episodes like “Five Foods You can use to Help Combat the Flu,” or “How to Beat the Allergy Season with These Five Supplements.” Every episode in the playlist builds Wei Qi.
But if it isn’t something as physical as pollen or viruses, how can you identify the energetic things the bladder channel helps safeguard? I think one of the best examples could be stress.
Think about what you think when under stress. First, stress is commonly about your interactions with others. Somebody does something that you feel is threatening or impacting you in an unfavorable way.
Let’s say something happens at work that puts your job in jeopardy. You might think the stress is the fear of not providing for yourself or your family. That is part of the stress and to learn more about that aspect of stress, the episode on, “ Liver Qi Stagnation & Foods that Help,” may help. But, the cause of the stress was whatever happened at work. Whatever happened at work is what you will spend time thinking about correcting, mitigating, avoiding, accepting… That original interaction started with another person where you had a knee-jerk response.
This knee-jerk response is the bladder channel protecting you from external influences. Only this time, it is not pollen or mold. It’s protecting your self-worth, self-identity, yourself from a perceived threat. As you get older, and usually anything past 5 or 6, you’re already practicing this response to a situation, the reaction has become so familiar that you no longer even think about it. It’s a knee-jerk reaction to a situation. It’s that initial response that is wrapped up in a lot emotion. It’s that response that you would like to change. It’s that response or that situation you would like support from a friend, a spouse, or a professional.
And when you’re in that zone, that knee-jerk reaction zone, it’s great to identify what the emotion is that you are feeling whether its fear, the need to defend yourself, being at fault, not feeling good enough, whatever it is. Those feelings lock you into a pattern of responses, and it’s those feelings that define how you defend yourself from the world. And that is the bladder channel. Or, that is what the bladder channel supports, your defense against the outside world.
As the years go by, you’ve been able to practice your reaction so much that the response becomes more rigid, more inflexible. Especially when the response becomes a knee-jerk reaction, it is pretty rigid, right? A knee-jerk reaction is what an athlete is striving for. Instead of thinking about your action, your body just automatically moves without your conscious thought. But, to get to that point took years of training and practice. So much practice that even in a little situation that’s a little unique, the body still responds precisely and instantaneously.
The training that delivers instantaneous action is considered skill and talent in the physical body of an athlete. But, in an individual’s energetic and emotional body, it is viewed as a sign of clumsiness, inexperience, ignorance, and even incompetence.
Now, over time, what you practice in your energetic channel will manifest on the physical body. Even though one of the roles of the bladder channel is to eliminate waste, when you have too much waste, the channel starts to get littered with it, and slowly the litter wins. The rigidness reacting to situations and the inability to see a position in a different light will begin to litter the bladder channel and bring that type of rigidness to the neck and back muscles.
And stress has a role in the neck and shoulders. Yet, if you dig into your stress, and target what set this whole thing in motion, you may find your knee-jerk response to the world instead.
And that energetic response, which hasn’t changed, is why the tightness comes back into the back muscles after getting a great acupuncture treatment or great massage or great whatever. It comes back because you are still doing everything you needed to do to create it in the first place.
So, what can you do about this because you are trying to address your energetic body. Energy medicine like acupuncture, herbal therapy, reiki, pranic healing, gurus, etc address this level. But let’s say that is not what you want to do. You want to do some work on your own. Well then, the best medicine I’ve found is the forgiveness meditation from Grandmaster Choa Kuk Sui. You can find the meditation on the internet. Grandmaster Choa Kuk Sui has many practitioners. So, you will find different people who will show you how to complete this meditation. It only takes a few minutes, and to get the best results do it every day. It took practice to get here. It will take practice to leave here.
Good-luck on your most amazing adventure. And if you want to look at how to address the physical symptoms of pain, check out the episode, “Honest Review 3 Great Supplements that Really Work on Back Pain“