It’s not an easy time to be running a magazine, especially one that avoids the unholy trinity of celebrity gossip, preying on insecurity and rampant consumerism. Just ask the folks at Common Ground - the Totnes-based eco and lifestyle mag who I understand hasn’t been able to keep its head above water after just one edition. I remember too my own efforts in publishing (Vibes! - Sheffield’s guide to positive living) that almost drove me round the bend and certainly deep into debt way back in 1994. Being Assistant Editor at Positive News was also a big insight into the perils of postive publishing and the old adage that good news is still doing up its shoelaces, while bad news has gone round the world twice.

All that said, my deepest respect and admiration therefore goes to The Source, the “first stop for inspiration and information on all the things we all care about down here in the South West … our land, our community, our spirit and above all, our plans for a sustainable and positive future”. (Read on …)

When I had my first major life crisis (breakdown, enlightenment, spiritual emergency, ‘Saturn return’; call it what you will) about 20 years ago, one book that appeared in my life was E.F. Schumacher’s Small is Beautiful (pictured). Associated with it, was a subscription to Resurgence magazine (hear my interviews 20 years later with its luminary editor Satish Kumar), membership of the Schumacher Society and a pilgrimage to the Schumacher Lectures in Bristol - what a painful, yet glorious time in my life!

In recent days, ‘Fritz’ (as I think he was known among friends and family), popped back into view via the Tom Hodgkinson book I’ve been raving about (see last few posts) and yesterday, I stole his book back from my ex-wife’s bookshelves, whilst dropping off our daughter.

His ‘Buddhist Economics’ have stood the test of time. Check this out from the sleeve-notes: “Dr Schumacher challenges the doctrine of economic, technological and scientific specialisation and proposes a system of Intermediate Technology, based on smaller working units, communal ownership, and regional workplaces utilising local labour and resources. With an emphasis on the person not the product, Small is Beautiful points the way to a world in which Capital serves Man instead of Man remaining a slave to Capital.” (Read on …)

The idea of going for a scan can create anxiety. Whether for the purposes of routine screening or to double-check a medical suspicion, scans also tend to be rooted in the physical body. So the idea of a metaphysical or holistic scan – to look for energetic blockages – caught my interest.

It’s Kimberley Jones, a Torquay born and bred Art Historian turned healer and artist, who offers this insightful and unusual service under the banner of Quantum Coaching and Healing, and for anyone remotely interested in the connection between the emotions, the mind and health – she’s a must-see.

Sure I was intrigued to learn that Kimberley “reads” bodily energy with her hands and can feel colours - red, blue and green - which reveal different types of energetic information all over the body. But I was relieved to be greeted by a very normal looking and sounding person when I went for my initial consultation.

“I have sensed ‘energy’ since I was a child - although I wouldn’t have called it that,” Kim told me when I quizzed her about her background. “I just knew what people were thinking and feeling.”

“Growing up I found my sensitivity made it hard to be in the world so I started numbing myself with alcohol and cigarettes at a very young age. I convinced myself I could get a respectable job and perhaps be a ‘businesswoman’, whatever that meant,” Kim revealed.

“Nothing satisfied me and I moved jobs regularly. I buried my abilities deeper and deeper until I forgot about them. I got more and more stressed,” added Kim whose mother it turns out was also highly psychic.

Following her mother’s death in 1997, Kim started experiencing violent psychic events and her abilities were blasted wide open again, far stronger than before.

“I went into a ’spiritual emergency’, a crisis that often leads to a breakdown of some kind,” Kim told me. “I also became physically unwell. Diagnosed with Fibromyalgia in 2000, I became unable to function in any normal way and had to stop work.”

“The one thing that had a strong effect on me during these years was healing. Whether spiritual healing or Reiki, each session led to a huge improvement in my condition and my reawakened extra-sensory abilities.”

“Eventually I was strong enough to start my own research and training, using myself as my own guinea pig,” she explained. “I began by studying Reiki and am now a Reiki Master.”

Soon after Kim trained in “energy mastery” and the “energetics and spirituality of business”, followed by a voluntary apprenticeship to a leading European re-birthing therapist, which enabled her to learn more about how pain, both emotional and physical, is just energy held in the body’s energetic fields.

“This is when I started to see and sense how energy behaves in and around the body according to what we are thinking. It was a huge breakthrough for me,” she said.

Kim has now developed all of her learning into a system called Quantum Coaching and Healing where she uses her abilities as an “energy intuitive” to scan people’s energy fields and offer guidance and healing according to what she finds.

“I have found this cuts through to a truth that is validated by my clients time and again,” she told me. “People are regularly referred to me by their psychotherapist or body work therapist. Your energy fields never lie. They always speak the truth about the deep issues underlying anything you want help with.”

Kim reckons our masks, inherited beliefs and attitudes are like our ‘words’, and she calls the real us revealed by our energy, our ‘music’, claiming that if our words and music don’t go together we get imbalance and eventually dis-ease of some kind.

“I see my job as something resembling a choir master, bringing your words and music together so you can sing your own unique song in the world with health, confidence and joy,” says Kim who also offers support to those highly sensitive to the energy of others at work or at home.

Her Quantum Coaching and Healing sessions involve clients lying down fully clothed and relaxing on a treatment bed. Kim then passes her hands over and around your body sensing energy fields as though she has “eyes in her hands”.

Kimberley’s approach – after an initial and thorough pre-treatment discussion - is a really interesting blend of off-the-beaten-track energy work and hi-tech methodology. Lying on her treatment table, I was at first aware of her ’scanning’, but soon drifted off into a much-needed snooze, comfortable in the safety of her already-healing space.

Before I fell into too much of a slumber however, I saw how Kimberley transcribed the sensations felt and ’seen’ through her hands into coloured shading on an outline of a human body – representing me and my energy on this particular day - on her laptop screen, for later interpretation.

It must have been around 30-40 minutes, when I felt Kimberley’s healing touch on my arm inviting me to rejoin the conscious world. A little fuzzy still, I returned to the consulting area to be greeted by a pretty map of my metaphysical energy and to hear Kimberley’s insights, findings and ideas about what it all meant.

Depending on what is needed, Kim uses healing, visualisations, breathing, relaxation techniques and energy meditations, drawing on her toolkit of training and experience combined with intuitive and psychic sensing.

She’s good and she’s accurate. Coming from a very loving and supportive place – and not in any way ungrounded or annoyingly new age – Kim really gave me something to think about and a number of useful tips to help me through what she saw as my energetic blocks. I’ve always thought the body never lies, and Kim’s energetic extension of this theory takes things a convincing step further.

Kimberley Jones’ Quantum Coaching & Healing is available in Totnes and Netwon Abbot. Call 01803 868282 for more information or a consultation. Or visit: www.quantum-coaching.co.uk

Check this out: http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/…jan07_booklet.pdf

The word “healing” really seems to push people’s buttons. Just recently, I heard a BBC Radio 4 guest - on one of those hot-air opinion-based programmes - slam anything to do with healing (i.e. “run a mile”) based on the merest mention of the word. Fair play I suppose, it does conjure up images of eccentric characters standing over or behind those in need, with their hands hovering mysteriously in the air, eyes closed and an atmosphere of mystical expectation.

In fact, when I once questioned a person who asked “would you like some healing?”, asking her: “what is it?”, she replied “well, it’s healing,” in a way that suggested everyone knows what healing is and what’s more it can only be for the good. So I do understand widely-held discomfort, but feel I must challenge the widely-held ignorance that tends to go with it.

In the last few weeks, BBC2 did the concept of healing no favours either, with its series “Trust me I’m a healer”. A predicatble stitch-up that’s thrown together a random bunch of “healers” and given them the usual media treatment - opinionated skepticism and understated ridicule - and an all-out effort for a cheap laugh about something most people don’t understand. Of course, making fun of what you don’t understand is something “foreign” people used to endure in pre-multicultural days, but let’s not open that can of worms here.

Sadly in this recent BBC2 hatchet job, the inference, as with most mainstream programme-making is that all healing is suspect, which to any intelligent person is like saying all eating is somehow bad or all medicine is wrong. Healing is an activity which, like eating and medicine, can go a number of ways in the hands of any number of people.

Here’s some help for those who haven’t dismissed it out of hand based on sloppy media portrayal and a few eccentric or rogue practitioners they’ve experienced third-hand on the telly, down the pub or at a mind, body and spirit fair…

There’s “Spiritual Healing”, which the National Federation of Spiritual Healers (NFSH) says is: “a generic term used to describe various forms of holistic healing across the world.” They claim there are “more than 15,000 healers operating in the UK, of which 5,000 belong to NFSH but many others work independently and in their own way.”

Add to these thousands those who do not use the prefix “spiritual”, which might include many complementary therapists not uncomfortable with the term healing (which after all, must surely mean “to make whole”) and you get a potentially huge heal-th boosting army, who get written off by the prejudice that surrounds that simple, yet deeply powerful, h-word.

As the NFSH say, “healers come from many different backgrounds and belief systems. The source of healing energy is open to interpretation and varies depending on the individual.” So for heavens sake, do see for yourself and quiz anyone who calls themselves a “healer” until they satisfy any qualms you have. Because that’s where I would advise caution; anyone who does call themselves a “healer” as opposed to someone who facilitates “healing” should be carefully examined.

Use the 3 ‘i’s that I often recommend - intelligence, instinct and intuition - but please don’t get hung up on a word or your old ideas and pre-conceptions. You colud be missing out if you do. If I’m not mistaken, the NHS has spiritual healing in its vast and diverse armoury these days.

“People who receive healing often experience profound benefits. Healing should always be considered a complementary therapy, not an alternative to conventional treatment.” the NFSH reminds us. “Spiritual Healing can help on many levels as it treats the whole person, mind, body and spirit. Remarkable changes can occur but a physical cure is not always a certainty. (NFSH) healers should not offer false hope.”

Of course they shouldn’t. But that’s not a reason to not give healing a chance. You might be surprised.

A Totnesian (Totnes - “funky town” in Devon, UK) friend of mine, having heard a radio phone-in that posed the question: “Can healthy eating make you ill?”, told me he didn’t get through, but was ready to say: “most definitely YES! I live in Totnes and I know”.

Totnes is surely - when it comes to healthy living and foody fads - the “been there, done that and spilt organic, free-range, raw gravy down my T-shirt” capital of “worried wellness”.

But it’s not a joking matter. OK, well it’s only partly a joking matter, because a ten-year old idea - orthorexia nervosa - has resurfaced in the midst of the healthy living revolution that we are all being pushed into.

Look around and you’ll see there’s no escape. Supermarkets have harnessed the sales potential of organic and healthier produce, the government and NHS are urging us to eat more wisely to ease the public purse, kids in school have been programmed with the 5-a-day mantra and of course my living - like the livelihoods of most holistic practitioners and pundits - is based on healthy living and eating concepts.

I have to say I can’t blame you if you are sick of it.

That said, you’re probably not as sick as some of the aforementioned Totnes folk and those who may actually be dealing with orthorexia nervosa, because they really are sick; that is if you concur with the founder of this condition, one Dr. Steven Bratman.

Bratman, a Colorado-based physician came up with the term in 1997 to denote what he considers to be an eating disorder characterized by a “fixation” on eating healthful food. From the Greek orthos, meaning”correct or right” and orexis for “appetite”, this doctor describes orthorexia as “an unhealthy obsession with what the sufferer considers to be healthy eating. The subject may avoid certain foods, such as those containing fats, preservatives, or animal products.”

Though not officially recognised as a condition it seems in psychiatric circles and criticised, in the early days, by those who feel that focusing on healthy eating is generally beneficial and does not indicate a mental imbalance, it must surely now demand greater examination.

“Twenty years ago I was a wholehearted, impassioned advocate of healing through food. Today, as a physician who practices alternative medicine, I still almost always recommend dietary improvement to my patients. How could I not?“ wrote Bratman, nearly ten years ago in the October 1997 issue of Yoga Journal.” A low-fat, semi vegetarian diet helps prevent nearly all major illnesses, and more focused dietary interventions can dramatically improve specific health problems. But I’m no longer the true believer in nutritional medicine I used to be.”

“Where once I was enthusiastically evangelical, I’ve grown cautious. I can no longer console myself with the hope that one day a universal theory of eating will be discovered that can match people with the diets right for them. And I no longer have faith that dietary therapy is a uniformly wholesome intervention. I have come to regard it as I do drug therapy: as a useful treatment with serious potential side-effects,” he added.

“Many of the most unbalanced people I have ever met are those who have devoted themselves to healthy eating. In fact, I believe some of them have actually contracted a novel eating disorder for which I have coined the name “orthorexia nervosa.”

Saying “diet is an ambiguous and powerful tool, too complex and emotionally charged to be prescribed lightly, yet too powerful to be ignored,” Bratman makes a powerful point. Food is powerful medicine. But more powerful and seriously disease-forming are obsession, anxiety and guilt - that evil three headed trio - which sadly lurks in the slipstream of any advice and guidance we are given about healthy eating and living.

I say run any such information past your own instincts, intuition and intelligence. Trust yourself and your body; do your best. And don’t beat yourself up. But above all, get and have a life!

Whilst on a recent trip to Thailand researching new treats and treatments, I had the chance to check out Healthlands, a small chain of spas, with branches in Bangkok and and Pattaya.Rushed there after a sumptuous seafood dinner (yes I know I did it the wrong way round), I was ushered into a lift and led to a delightful minimalist bodywork suite complete with oversized massage table draped with thai silk, a James Bond shower with more jets than I could be bothered to count and carefully designed lighting that had my blood pressure lowered on entry.

My tiny masseuse, Tina, invited me to take a shower and as I alerted her to my for-what-I-am-about-to-receive-may-the-lord-make-me-truly-thankful state of readiness, she re-entered the room and greeted me with “underwear - no!”.

Thoughtfully and dramatically turning her face to the wall, Tina’s limited grasp of English was immediately transcended into a clear communication - hurry up and get naked.

I needed no further invitation, and throwing British reserve along with my boxers to the floor, went for the birthday suit option and delighted in the combination of crisp white linen and soft silk against my skin as I hit the pleasure plinth face-down.

Tina’s smoothing moves took me down another octave on the relaxation scale, my bliss interrupted only by my own foolish gluttony and timing as the preceding seafood feast made its presence felt - pushing back from the depths of my belly.

In no time, Tina was up on the table with me in true Thai style, not sparing the horses and putting an ant to shame in terms of bodyweight leverage. As she commented “very hard” (which I took as a comment on my muscular tone; not a prescription) she seemed to morph into an eastern European weightlifter, certainly in terms of pounds per square inch pressure.

Pampering quickly turned to my new discovery pain-pering’, a concept me and my hedolst buddies are not too familiar with. Hedolism by the way, is my own hybrid lifestyle that marries hedonistic pleasure to holistic principles (for life and not just for Christmas). (see: www.hedolistic.com)

So hedolistic it wasn’t, but I’m not complaining.

Childbirth-like specialist breathing got me through the toughest parts of this wellbeing workout, along with the gentler parts of Tina’s routine that had me purring like a kitten. Knuckle cracking was complemented by luxurious long strokes, which reminded me that massage is the ‘mother of all therapies’ (even if at times it appeared to be an over-strict, disciplinarian father).
Incidentally, this mega-massage - billed as aromatherapy - was not preceded by any sort of consultation, or perhaps more appropriately, riot act. No western style contra-indications were discussed either; it was straight down to business at this urban oasis where it’s a matter of buyer beware.

Dispensed with too were the prissiness and discomfort of the sensuality/sexuality issue. Certainly in my experience of British therapy rooms, the boundary is so clearly marked that it becomes an issue in its own right. While I’m not suggesting protection for therapist and client alike are important, I am saying the Thai approach - that allows massage of the chest, buttocks and high thighs without inhibition or embarrassment - is something we repressed Westerners can learn from. In other words “Get over it!”.

Anyway, enough body politics.

Finishing with some deep pressure from Tina’s elbows into my now ‘throw whatever you have at me’ shoulders and some implausible stretches that made me quite proud of myself, my Thai tormenter turned tension-tamer gently called time and suggested I take another shower.

Back on my feet, the world assumed that lovely, a little mushy, ‘there is a god’ feeling and back in the decompression lounge, I sipped warm fragrant tea as well as chilled water amid thoughtfully designed water features, floral arrangements and other post-massage guests. Massage therapists lined the inviting corridors with Thai-style grace and greetings, making you feel like a king or queen, yet I couldn’t help feeling I should be the one bowing in respect for the skills so gratefully received.

Chilled to the max, it occurred to me that the suitably named Healthlands, a country within a country, a numinous nation state that all should be lucky enough to visit at some time in their lives, was the perfect blend of original barefoot healing arts, contemporary styling plus heart-warming Thai service and attention to detail.

I’m applying for citizenship.

Predictably, the opening of 2007’s starting gates saw the cream of the UK’s health and personal development celebrities stepping up for their share of the “New Year – New You” market.“Straight-talking nutritionist Gillian McKeith is back with a brand-new series - You Are What You Eat: Gillian Moves In,” says Channel 4. “The dinky diet detective has travelled the UK to find some desperate cases. Now they’ve got a big shock in store as they will be living under the same roof as Gillian, following her house rules, with no escape!”

In print, The Times wisely promotes mind-worker Paul McKenna, whose work – under the banner “I can change your life in five days” - is serialised throughout this week in five key areas: weight loss, giving up smoking, health, motivation and sleep.

Meanwhile, the smooth, rather than straight-talking nutritionist Patrick Holford tells us that “there is only one person who can change all this - and that is you”, as he promotes his 100% Health workshops that “make it virtually impossible for you not to jump your level of health.”

It’s Paul McKenna that I’d like to dwell on as he makes most sense to me, focussing as he does on positive modes of change and transformation, rather than nutritional and lifestyle terrorism like Doctor McKeith. Apart from jaw-dropping, freak show TV, what possible long-term merit is there in bullying people, who presumably already have self-esteem issues, and making them feel bad. To me that’s not real change; that’s just tidying your room to keep your mum happy, yet remaining a slob for the rest of your adult life after you’ve left home.

And as for wholefood-Holford, for my money, he’s not holistic enough, focussing mainly on the physical plane. That’s not to say his information isn’t useful, it’s just that McKenna takes us closer to the powerhouse of transformational power – the mind.

Among McKenna’s most valuable offerings are: ”a startling study edited by Dr Bernard Stewart recently released in the UK predicts that unless people begin taking responsibility for their health, global rates of cancer could rise by 50 per cent to 15 million new cases a year by 2020. The study went on to say that as many as two in three of these cases can be prevented and/or cured through “lifestyle changes”.“

“Research has indicated that generally optimists live longer, happier, healthier lives, partly because optimum states enhance our immune system. Studies in recent years have proven that we can dramatically enhance our immune system by actively choosing our beliefs and consistently practising visualisation techniques,” he adds, leaving us with the big question: “if the secret to good health is a positive perspective, what’s causing all the disease?”

“Simple,” he claims, “studies have suggested that the major threat in modern life is being killed by our own defence system being triggered too often — by our response to stress.”

Now that’s a great insight in a week when M.E. (more cruelly known as “Yuppie Flu”) is back on the agenda, also thought by some to be the result of overtaxing our stress responses.

Sure, environmental toxins play their part – as McKenna happily points out. But the growing realisation that stress could be the incubating or disabling factor in disease, rather than a cause specifically, must surely warrant some consideration.

This of course brings me back to Gillian McKeith who stresses her “victims” into making seemingly positive changes. Whilst their conversion to fresh and even raw foods might make them feel better within the scope of a 30 or 60-minute TV show (along with healthier stools, as is McKeith’s preoccupation), I dread to think what the shame, stress and ridicule must be doing to their psychological wellbeing and consequential physical health months or years later.

McKenna seems to know that positive change can only last when good and positive feelings are deeply associated with the desirable outcomes we seek. He vindicates my “hedolistic” view of living well that combines a holistic understanding with hedonistic motives.

I maintain that shame, stress and conscription (via prescription) have no truly worthwhile place in health education and the pursuit of wellness. When will we realise that feeling good is the very essence of being well and well-being? When will we relax and enjoy our food without being faddy or fussy. It’s Pareto’s 80/20 rule for us hedolists, where alcohol and coffee have a guilt-free place alongside well-researched and tasty dietary choices – not a painful struggle for ‘nutritional correctness’.

Sadly, Gillian McKeith’s shows may never carry the disclaimer: “No human beings were harmed in the making of this programme” – why is bullying OK on TV when at the same time we are doing our best to drive it out of our schools and workplaces?

Hopefully, more of us will turn our minds to the liberating approaches of those in the know, and the know-how, like Paul McKenna, who are really beginning to understand the awesome power of the mind and its effect in all – and I mean everything - that we do.

By way of some light relief try this: http://www.stablesound.co.uk/poo.php

The best six doctors anywhere
And no one can deny it
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air
Exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend
If only you are willing
Your mind they’ll ease
Your will they’ll mend
And charge you not a shilling.

- Nursery rhyme quoted by Wayne Fields, What the River Knows, 1990

It seems to me that each of us – with our individual composition, needs and life experience – is a one-person research project.

Each of us dabbles in a range of on-going experiments. My parents are engaged in the great pharmaceutical experiment (I’m not up for that one).

I’m involved with the great natural health and metaphysical healing experiments (as well as the massive mobile phone trial) and time will tell what my participation will bring.

In this way, we do our best – according to our instincts, intuition and intelligence – and serve those to come in history, who will no doubt scoff at our ignorance and ‘backward’ ideas – just as we do at those who thought the earth was flat and dunked witches.

From Carl Munson’s forthcoming book - “Good health is easy (it’s being ill that’s hard work)”