Does New Age healing really work?

While some may dismiss it as a hoax, more Malaysians are visiting centres offering alternative healing for emotional and physical wellbeing, writes SUZANNA PILLAY.

Manjeet (left) tapping Darreck's meridian (acupuncture) points.

DO emotions affect your body’s overall health?

Practitioners of New Age or alternative healing seem to think so, emphasising the mind, body, spirit connection, while doubters dismiss it as free-spirited, hippy-culture nonsense.

Although they can’t prove it in black and white, believers of emotional healing say it does work. What's encouraging is that more Malaysians are flocking to such wellness centres to emotionally heal and get better.

“People are tired of pill-popping. We take a pill for almost everything that ails us and sometimes we don’t feel better. There’s not only disillusionment with the pharmaceutical industry but also people want to be empowered to help themselves. People feel that they can take care of themselves; more importantly, they are ready to do so,” said Manjeet Kaur, a practitioner of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).

Manjeet teaches at Lightworks’ new-energy healing and New Age store in Jalan Mesui, Kuala Lumpur.

After 23 years in the corporate sector as a regional marketing director for a global company, Manjeet wanted something else from life.

She was trying to have a balanced life doing something she loved, “because doing something that you love is rewarding and effortless”.

She also wanted to help people be happy.

“I was looking for tools which could help me and at the same time was easy enough for everyone to use. Emotions and understanding them are of great interest to me. If you go to a doctor, he or she wouldn’t be able to explain how emotions affect health. But emotions are a very important communication tool which tell you if something is not right in general with your life. If you don’t feel good, your emotions are trying to tell you that something in your life has to change.”

This led her to become a practitioner of EFT.

Based on principles of the body’s energy meridians (accupuncture points), kinesiology and the latest in psychological research, EFT is a simple tapping procedure that gently realigns the meridiens to negative memories and disconnects the physical discomfort that we attach to it.

Often, this removes resulting symptoms like stress and anxiety.

According to Manjeet, emotional and physical problems were linked.

“Past memories, good or bad, affect the body. Ninety-five per cent of emotions we have today are those from life experiences and conditioning received from parents and peers. These include trauma and happy moments which are stored in our subconscious,” she said.

Like Manjeet, Charmaine Lian, who owns Angel Cast’er, a metaphysical shop in Petaling Jaya, started learning about spirituality initially to help herself.

Then she found that what she learnt could be used to help others.

In 2005, she started her shop offering not only retail but also reiki. She gradually added on other therapies.

Lian practises past-life regression, reconnection therapy and angel therapy.

“Past-life regression helps a client to clear karmic blocks by taking him or her to the past and deal with beliefs, patterns and trauma which are preventing the person from realising his or her full potential.

“Angel therapy, meanwhile, is derived from Tarot and oracle cards which provide clients with guidance as to what’s going on in their lives and options on how to improve it.”

Lian’s customers range from 20-year-olds to 50-year-olds. She has a regular client base of 50 people.

Some visit her shop to look for self-help books, crystals or tarot decks while others are looking for alternative therapies for their bodies.

“We’re not here to convince or change people’s minds about New Age practices. Some people think it’s a placebo effect.

“On some level it can be that way but ultimately people do get healed and get some comfort from it. Just because you can’t see it in black and white doesn’t mean it isn't working.”

More Malaysians are embracing and willing to try different New Age therapies after undergoing reiki which they find to be highly beneficial, according to Darreck Chen, a certified master/teacher of Usui Reiki and Spiritual Response Therapy.

Chen had a deep interest in spirituality and alternative healing at an early age.

He founded Malaysia’s first meditation internet portal and followed this up in 2004 with meditiation.com.my, a website dedicated to alternative healing. It promoted mind, body, spirit workshops and seminars in Malaysia and Singapore.

Spiritual response therapy (SRT) searches the subconscious to determine and release emotional and physical problems.

Doing this gives a person a more positive outlook to life.

“A lot of people have suppressed emotions and these can manifest as anger and frustration. Not dealing with them can result in physical illness.”

And the feedback from people who have undergone New Age therapies?

Your heart feels lighter and you can cope with everyday work stress better,” said Vila Pillay, manager of an obstetrics and gynaecology clinic who has been going for such therapies for the last three years.

“Whenever you feel good, you go through the day good. Avoiding stress helps your body from becoming weak and falling sick.”