Article first published as Book Review: 'Somatic Energetics: Healing Your Back Pain and Transforming Your Life' by Dr. Michael McBride on Blogcritics.
June 4, 2015
Somatic Energetics:
Healing Your Back Pain and Transforming Your Life
Dr. Michael McBride
Somatic Energetics (2014)
ISBN: 9781940984544
New Book Reveals Secrets of Back Pain Recovery Through Dynamic Energy Process
Dr. Michael McBride has had an extraordinary career of helping people. The results of his healing methods are nothing short of amazing, and now he has written a book detailing many of his stories of healing and the processes through which it is done.
Early on, McBride was interested in healing. He began his career as a yoga teacher in the 1970s, then became interested in chiropractic, which led to his attending Palmer College in 1982. But he soon realized chiropractic, as beneficial as it is, did not hold all the answers. So he began to explore energetic healing work, which brought him full circle back to his spiritual roots in yoga. Soon he was developing his own energetic healing techniques, and from that, in time Somatic Energetics was born. In his own words, McBride describes Somatic Energetics as “a complete method rooted in traditional holistic chiropractic, yoga, ancient, and alternative health care methods.”
McBride began practicing these methods in Hawaii, but when a German tourist encouraged him to visit Germany, he decided to take her up on it. The result has been more than twenty years of traveling around the world healing people and teaching his techniques from Europe to Japan and the South Pacific. Throughout these experiences, he has documented the many incredible results his clients have experienced.
In Somatic Energetics, McBride explains his techniques and recalls several amazing stories of healing. In the book’s introduction, he explains his purpose in sharing this information:
“In this book, you will learn about Somatic Energetics and how I came to recognize the meaning of the delicate (or not so delicate) hints in the sensations you are feeling. Significant findings are encoded behind the clues that are the body’s hidden messages.... This book is not specifically designed to teach you how to do the work, but it will inform you as to its workings, describe its process fully and give you all the background information around the issues you are now facing. A few simple and helpful exercises are included for you to begin tuning into what your mind and body is telling you.”
In addition to the exercises and stories of healing, the countless photographs are integral to the book, especially the images of many of McBride’s clients in their healing sessions. He has had remarkable cases of people instinctively moving into angel, crucifixion, and even tarot card postures, and the photographs testify to how his energy sessions have triggered these positions. He views these results as among the hidden messages in the body. He also frowns upon the use of much of modern medicine that only tries to end pain and treat the symptom rather than look for the cause. Instead, he believes our bodies know how to heal themselves and they give us information to assist them. As he explains:
“The body’s ‘operating system’ is the Innate Intelligence, the Divine Spark of Intelligence that courses through the nerves of your nervous system. It connects, operates, inspires, heals, and motivates all the cells that make up your body. This intelligence is more than just empty electrical impulses or sterile bio-chemical messengers. This energy flowing through your body is like a vibrational language. It generates a resonating field that exists in and all around our bodies as well.”
Unfortunately, the body’s ability to heal itself is often interfered with by stress and other issues. The goal of Somatic Energetics is “to remove that interference and restore your vitality so you can live a full and pain-free life.”
McBride’s outside-the-box thinking doesn’t extend solely to looking beyond modern medicine, but also to dismissing pre-conceived ideas, including that genetics must fully control a person’s health. “I see the DNA coding as a starting place and a potential that can be positive or negative. Those who can open and connect with a consciousness stronger than their programming will be able to override and avoid such destructive instructions and their replication and repetitions. The aim of sessions is clearing these restrictive patterns in order to release genetic, mental, emotional, and social programming. When you become more flexible and responsive, you begin to experience a new openness and your reality often shifts to a more positive self-awareness.”
Many of the health problems McBride’s clients experience are the result of archetypal beliefs and worries. By listening to the body’s “Tones,” McBride can often get to the root of what kind of worry or anxiety is causing certain types of pain or other problems in the body, and he can then provide a way to heal it. For example, many people with back problems have one leg shorter than another, which McBride attributes to identity issues, and through moving the energy in the body, he is able to readjust the leg length back to normal for his patients.
Is it all too good to be true? Everyone will have to decide for him- or herself. I encourage people to read Somatic Energetics and be open to the possibility that other forms of healing do exist and that the body is a far more amazing tool than modern medicine gives it credit for being. I trust that many people will be able to find relief from pain through McBride’s techniques, and many will be so enticed that they will want to become healers themselves. As McBride states, “The ultimate source is Universal Intelligence. What is important is that you learn what is necessary to facilitate your own healing and helping the ones whom you touch.” Somatic Energetics is a good place to begin learning.
For more information about Somatic Energetics and Dr. Michael McBride, visit www.SomaticEnergetics.com.
— Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D., and award-winning author of Arthur’s Legacy
