Holistic Healing Online: Chinese Medicine and Energy Practice, Wherever You Are

I'm Bronwyn Ayla, L.Ac. — a licensed acupuncturist and Reiki Master Teacher who has trained over 1,000 practitioners since 1998.

Holistic healing online means receiving Chinese medicine and energy practice — including acupuncture consultation, Reiki, five-element work, and somatic support — through a remote session rather than an in-person clinic visit. The work draws on the same frameworks used in person: qi, meridians, the five elements, and the understanding that health involves the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social body together. Distance does not change the underlying medicine. Much of this work translates directly to an online format.

What "holistic" actually means in this context

A more holistic model of health suggests that we have a healthy physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, and social body to thrive. Taken a step further, we find harmony between each of these parts of ourselves so there is an alignment within and without, and these selves are in communication and integrated.

This is different from an allopathic model, where the answer appears to be finding the right cocktail of pharmaceuticals to control the body's processes sufficiently that symptoms are minimized. A holistic approach does not stop at symptom relief. The question underneath the work is: what is optimal health?

When people approach a healing session, they are often looking for a certain problem to be fixed — a sore shoulder, migraines. Their idea of health centers around fixing what may be broken. Often they haven't even considered what is possible in the realm of vibrant aliveness. Healing is not about fixing something that is broken, nor about returning to the closest approximation of who we were before the thing happened. It is a process of transformation.

Chinese medicine online: what the framework offers

Chinese medicine organizes the body through qi, meridians, and the five elements — water, wood, fire, earth, and metal. Each element has organs associated with it that are not western organs but systems that include organs, meridians, emotions, and stance in life.

Qi can be divided into five different phases, which are like flavors or qualities. The human body contains all five of these qualities, as does each meridian. Five-element theory is a useful vehicle for understanding the experience of qi.

The aura reflects and influences the state of our consciousness and physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Often, illness can begin in the auric field before it manifests in the physical body. Imbalances in the aura can begin with negative thought patterns, karmic imprints, unhealthy emotions, and chakra imbalances. Healing on the auric level treats deep-seated conditions, works on a preventative level, and encourages healing to be more permanent as it works on a karmic level as well.

Chinese medicine also recognizes that disease emerges as a way of showing us what is out of balance. Going right to fixing things instead of seeing what is out of balance, we miss the point: the nourishment of destinies and what we are here to do.

Reiki online: what it is and how it works

Reiki is an art that demonstrates how the most subtle of methods can often be the most radical. It calls us to sit with the self and understand how to use our inner natural resources to heal. Inner medicine healing resources our own living energy within and how we use it to respond to all things — a non-action that leads us back to balance and awareness. This is the power of Wu Wei, or non-action. It is a medicine that contrasts the busyness and chaos of our everyday lives.

Reiki is not only channeled from the heavens. In my experience, personally and clinically, there is a flow from the earth and a flow from the heavens that mixes together at the heart and then flows out of the hands. This further echoes Chinese medical theory, which puts humans between heaven and earth.

There has been a tendency in the west to explain Reiki through the lens of allopathic medicine. Situating Reiki back within Asian medicine — the tradition from which it was birthed — allows it to be steeped and practiced in those origins.

Reiki is not a separate technique taken out when needed. When we open to it as a way of streaming consciousness through our system, it begins to impact everything that we do — from making food, to soothing our children, to being in the grocery store at the checkout counter.

The psycho-emotional dimension

Emotions tell us what it is that we want in our lives, and how to become more our own selves. Emotions can function as a fierce and ruthless protector of the divine within us. Listening to our emotions is part of our immune functioning. It is normal to have feelings; it is inappropriate for them to have you.

The body's structures and habitual patterns become a powerful doorway to unconscious core material, including the hidden core beliefs that shape our lives, relationships, and self-images. As relaxation occurs and the breath deepens, unconscious feelings, attitudes, and memories may emerge.

We are not the same person dealing with the same trauma. We are continuously growing and evolving and changing. Each time painful experiences resurface for healing, we have an opportunity to harvest fresh insights from that experience. Because we are all interconnected, our inner work ripples into the fabric of our culture, creating new possibilities as we unlearn old ways.

Preventative and self-care practices that support the work

Part of what Chinese medicine and Reiki offer is a framework for daily self-care that does not depend on a clinic visit. Living in accordance with the cycles around us and taking cues from nature is part of being healthy. The Tong Shu, an ancient Chinese almanac, divides the year into two-week periods, or qi nodes, with the basic idea that when we follow the guidance of the stars, seasons, and nature's cycles, we are in accordance with universal qi and maintain health and longevity.

Practical supports include eating organic, local, non-GMO, colorful food; drinking warm water first thing in the morning; rest and stress management; and movement practices such as dance, yoga, martial arts, and tai chi. The cultivation of the hara — the energetic center in the lower abdomen — is one practice that can be done anywhere: sitting quietly, deepening the breath into the abdomen, and building awareness of the sphere of light at the center of the lower belly.

Self-care must match or exceed output. Capacity is built through how you live. The more resourced you are, the less you need to defend.

Frequently asked questions

Can holistic healing online actually work, or does it require in-person treatment? Much of this work can be done together wherever you are — you don't have to live near a clinic to begin. The frameworks of Chinese medicine and Reiki address the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social body, and these do not require physical proximity to engage.

What is Reiki and do I need a special background to receive or practice it? Reiki calls us to sit with the self and understand how to use our inner natural resources to heal. It is inner medicine healing that resources our own living energy within and how we use it to respond to all things. No special background is required to receive it or begin practicing it.

How does Chinese medicine online differ from a standard medical appointment? Chinese medicine does not stop at symptom relief. It works with qi, meridians, the five elements, and the understanding that health involves the physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, and social body together. Disease is understood as a way of showing us what is out of balance, and the work addresses that underlying imbalance rather than smoothing over it.

What does a session address beyond physical symptoms? Healing is a process of transformation — not fixing something broken, but transforming so we are no longer the person we were when the trauma happened or the dis-ease set in. We use alchemy to transform these experiences and the messages of our dis-ease to cultivate a deep medicine for ourselves. We are not really healthy until we are connected to our purpose for being here on this planet, we are actively seeking the nourishment of our destiny, and we are emanating love.

Much of this work can be done together wherever you are — you don't have to live near a clinic to begin. You can start online here: Work with me online.