Summon Your Essence: Energy Medicine and Climate Change

By Stephanie Mines, PhD

In the spring of 2013, two sisters, ages 14 and 16, were walking the neighbor’s dog after coming home from school in their small town of Lebanon, Oregon. Hearing their father’s screams, they rushed over to find him pinned under a 3,000-pound tractor. The girls braced themselves and lifted the tractor off their father, saving his life. You can watch an ABC News segment on the story here. How in the world was it possible for these teenager girls to lift that heavy tractor?

We humans are capable of re-engineering our capacities and shifting the boundaries of who we are when circumstances require it, e.g., when those we care for are in dire need or when there is no other choice in the face of overwhelming conditions. These young women acted out of their love for their father. They did not think about whether they could meet the challenge; they simply met it.

Climate change poses the same kind of threat to every one of us. We and our loved ones are at great risk and that risk is mounting every moment. We need to find the courage of these young girls in order to meet the crisis. We need to love humanity as much as they loved their father.

The health consequences of climate change are comprehensive. Most threatened are the very young, the elderly, and the impoverished. These health consequences threaten to trap us, to pin us down, as the father in this story was pinned under his tractor.

Researchers, such as those at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences in the U.S., have already calculated these health impacts, which include increased cardiovascular disease caused by rising air temperatures and accumulated pollutants; widespread allergic reactions resulting from increased frequency of high pollen levels; weather disasters that cause injury, displacement and loss; poor nourishment due to dehydration of soil; an increase in infectious disease; the contamination of food; and a proliferation of vector and water-borne infections. And that’s just the short list.

As someone who diligently studies the effects and treatment of overwhelm on the human nervous system, I argue that the level of stress caused by climate change will be the greatest burden on the human nervous system that humanity has ever known. It’s the equivalent of being pinned under a 3,000-pound tractor.

However, as a student of the human response to shock and trauma, and as a survivor, I can also say that every one of us has the capacity to find the commitment that those teenagers found within themselves when they saw their father trapped.

I believe that climate change will result in an evolutionary upgrade, which I am determined to espouse and promote. I also believe that we have energy medicine resources that can be made available to virtually anyone so that we can detoxify from the pollutants produced by climate change and so that we can stimulate the inner resilience to step into this utterly new, completely unprecedented period of challenge.

I’m adapting the energy medicine systems I’ve studied, practiced and taught for over three decades for this new time. These systems include meridian-based subtle and applied touch interventions that have been known for centuries to support nervous system reorganization.

In particular, I’ve invested considerable attention in the exploration of the Eight Extraordinary Vessels that I, along with master acupuncturist Yvonne Farrell (author of Psycho-Emotional Pain and the Eight Extraordinary Vessels) identify as the channels designed specifically to alleviate shock.

I will deliver these protocols to an international, intergenerational audience at the Climate Change & Consciousness (CCC) gathering at the Findhorn Foundation in North Scotland in April 2019, where I will be joined by environmental leaders like Bill McKibben, Naomi Klein and Charles Eisenstein. For the first time ever, climate change science will meet energy medicine for the benefit of humanity.

Among its many purposes, this conference about living and thriving in the aftermath of climate change will offer antidotes for the health impacts predicted to arise from climate change, which have already begun to impact the world. Researchers, including those at the National Institute of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, suggest that we need mitigation, adaptation, networking and preparedness. We will explore and experience these strategies actively at our CCC gathering.

Without ignoring how neuroendocrine systems must be strengthened alongside nutritional alternatives and technological innovations for protection, the Climate Change & Consciousness conference will bring to you the science of energy medicine to strengthen the human ability to adapt and transcend overwhelming conditions.

My job as a neuroscientist and healthcare provider, I feel, is to educate broadly so that humanity is prepared for the threats of climate change to health. I exhort others to join with me in developing their understanding of climate change so that they can tailor their resources for what is to come.

Of all the healing systems that exist, energy medicine has the greatest potential to be transmitted broadly so that individuals, parents, families and communities can empower themselves and maintain vibrancy when everything around us that we depend on, like seasonal changes and food sources, shift.

It’s daunting to look at climate change squarely and recognize that we are facing an existential crisis for humanity. Energy medicine instills the fortitude to not turn away but to rise up and meet this threat with faith and love, intelligence and creativity. The Climate Change & Consciousness conference is the place where our legacy for the earth will be forged using the greatest energy medicine that exists: our human connection and our human community.

We must all come home to our oneness, as the central stance in acknowledging and meeting this crisis. Even if you’re privileged enough to not be experiencing the climate crisis at the moment, somewhere in the world others are. Be a member of our mutual reinvention — that is our only hope.

Stephanie Mines, PhD is the author of We Are All in Shock: How Overwhelming Experiences Shatter You... and What You Can Do About It. She is the founder of the TARA Approach for the Resolution of Shock and Trauma, and the convener and vision holder for the April 2019 conference, Climate Change & Consciousness: Our Legacy for the Earth.