By eighth grade, most students know the body's physiological systems by name: Circulatory, digestive, eliminatory, endocrine, immune, muscular, nervous, reproductive, skeletal. They may not know, as they surely do in China, about another system that influences all nine physiological systems -- and has a major effect on her/his over-all health. It's the...

The Chinese have worked with this system for more than 3,000 years. You've heard about "Chi" -- life force energy. Physicists call it electro-magnetic energy. We of the West discovered it a few years ago...about the time Pres. Nixon went to China and reporters like Jimmy Reston of The New York Times got an acupuncture treatment! About the same time in the U.S., a surgeon who was performing open-brain surgery noticed an interesting fluid ebbing and flowing. Went from the encasement around the brain down the spine and outward to all parts of the body. Returned again. Came to be called Cerebro-Spinal Fluid... CSF for short.

It has an amazing function: It's the conductor of Life Force Energy (Chi).

If the body's major switches in the neck are not fully open, CSF -- and hence Chi -- cannot move freely back and forth between head and body. Such restriction leads to such problems as depression, headaches, lethargy, and eventually many diseases.

Now, back to the important role played by pain. Pain is the body's way of showing you where the Chi-conducting switches are blocked! They'll be tight. Maybe they hurt, at first when pressed. Soon, 'most all the time.

Tightness and pain in the neck are particularly significant. Where the pain is in the neck can tell you where there is constriction in the free-flowing Chi energy "switches" or reflexes that affect specific places in the lower body.

* Upper neck pain reflects blockage in the flow of Chi to the upper body, affecting the chest cavity and all points above it -- heart, lungs, breasts, chest points, shoulders, arms, wrists, hands, face, head, neck, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, etc. I call the reflexive switches in the upper neck the "Mind-Body Switches." If they're stuck, it affects points in the upper body. It also affects points in the middle and lower bodies. If the Chi cannot flow freely between the head and the upper body, it cannot move on into the middle and lower bodies, either.

* Middle neck pain reflects restricted flow of Chi to the middle body, including any or all organs in the abdominal cavity.

* Lower neck pain reflects constriction in free-flowing Chi to any or all lower body points -- hips, thighs, upper and lower legs, knees, feet, and toes, etc.

Here's a quick way to tell whether your "Mind-Body" Switches are fully open or not: Move your chin up and down. If it easily goes up three or four inches, with minimal resistance and no pain, they're wide open.

If not, perhaps we've found a significant probable cause -- at least, an affecting cause -- that you don't have as much energy as you'd like -- or are developing problems in the upper body. (And maybe in the middle and lower parts of the body, as well.) Remember that the Chi must flow freely between your head and the upper body to move on to the middle and lower bodies!

An outstanding mind-bodyworker knows where to effectively hold points at the back of the neck -- along with up to 50 related points elsewhere -- to help the neck's important reflexive switches open more fully.

This is an example of Polarity -- one of about 40 mind/body modalities that OMAR! integrates into sessions. Am so appreciative to the late Randolph Stone for his extensive commitment to and development of polarity over many years! Polarity is worth studying from a master like Will Leichnitz. To learn how I work with intuitively-based polarity (I've also spent several weekends in workshops with Mr. Leichnitz), ask me for a teaching session. We'll talk as I work. You'll Feel... Listen... Learn!