Some things are just meant to be.  My husband Frank and I were taking a beautiful walk down the beach in Amelia Island with our two dogs (Stella and Jessie) when we ran into a lovely couple out for a stroll.  The dogs ran wildly to greet them as if they were old friends they hadn’t seen in years.  After spending a few minutes chatting with them, we felt like we had known each other our entire lives.

When something like this happens to you, you really need to pay attention.  It’s not often you meet people you have this connection with, but when you do, you need to open your heart and go for it.  Simply put, we were fortunate to meet new “Real Friends” on that beautiful, sunny day—Dick and Tina Devoe.  Today’s article is about Tina but I promise to tell you all about Dick (who is incredibly interesting) in a future blog entry!

While getting to know them better, we found out that Christine “Tina” is a retired nurse who is both a practitioner and certified instructor in Health Touch Therapy.  She draws from her 20 years of maternal child health experience as a labor and delivery nurse and patient educator for high-risk pregnancies.  As a member of the Department of Integrative Medicine at Calvert Memorial Hospital, she pioneered the practice of Healing Touch and Massage.

With my background in the health and fitness industry, I was intrigued by this and wanted to learn more.  I booked an appointment with Tina so I could experience this type of therapy first-hand.  I purposely did not do any research on Healing Touch before my appointment so I wouldn’t know what to expect.

The goal of Healing Touch is to restore harmony and balance in the human energy system.  Of course we all know our bodies are made of energy.  Albert Einstein taught us that.  What I didn’t know was that our energy fields could get all bollixed up—much like a traffic jam on the highway.  You must clear the jam to allow the energy (or traffic) to move freely again.

Upon arrival at her home, Tina let me know she was treating me as a client (not as a friend).  She wanted me to fully understand the professionalism associated with the Healing Touch process and to see what a real session was like.   This was good because it kept me focused on the experience.  Normally, I am an incessant chit-chatter so I kept my mouth shut and my mind open to what was going on.

I did my best to answer a series of questions about old injuries and what I would like to accomplish from the session.  We proceeded to the treatment table where I rested comfortably (face up thankfully).  After I chose music over silence, Tina began with a fascinating brown pendulum “thing”.  She held it over different areas of my body.  If it circled around the area, that meant the energy was flowing like it should.  If it remained still, the energy was blocked.  The funny thing is this:  I forgot to tell her about some old injuries (and ones that still hurt a lot).  When she came to those areas, the pendulum just hung there—like it was dead.  She asked me if anything had happened to the joint (or area) and sure enough, she was right.

She informed me that the goal of the treatment was to open up all energy channels in my body.  After seeing the “dead pendulum” hanging over different parts of my body, I was excited to see if and how it worked.

Healing Touch uses gentle, light touch to balance, clear and support the energy system in your body.  The main focus is to remove energy congestion that forms in our energy centers (chakras) and energy fields (also known as aura).  By opening up this flow of energy, it reconnects and rebalances the human energy system.

Most of the time Tina’s hands were placed gently on 2 different parts of my body.  Other times, her hands hovered over my body—without actually touching it—yet I could still “feel” it.  Interestingly, the areas where I had been experiencing significant pain got very HOT during this process.  The “healthy” parts of my body remained cool during the entire session.

After my session, I was instructed to drink a lot of water and pay attention to how I felt.  I went back home, and must admit, I had an incredibly relaxing night.  It was if someone slipped a Valium in my drink—I felt very mellow.  I didn’t have a significant reduction in pain overall, but my left knee has been feeling better since the treatment two weeks ago.  I plan on scheduling another visit when Tina comes home from teaching her Healing Touch course up in Maine.  I will keep you posted!

Healing Touch is an accepted and validated form of therapy that is utilized in hospitals, long term care facilities, health clinics, hospice, private practices, and integrative health centers.  For more information or to locate a Healing Touch Practitioner in your area, please go to www. HealingTouchProgram.com.

If you would like to read Tina’s article “Lisa Oz, East Meets West” (wife of the super famous Dr. Oz) and see Tina’s beautiful watercolor journal, please visit http://www.energymagazineonline.com/energey_archived_issues/july2009.pdf.

Stay well and smile,

Molly