By Charlotte DeFazio
PURIST: What initially sparked your passion for acupuncture and Chinese medicine?
Jill Blakeway: I was amazed at how well it worked for long-term, chronic health conditions. I love how the medicine takes a look at the whole body and the patterns of disharmony between symptoms, and then offers the body prompts to self-heal in a way that is really effective. I founded the Yinova Center because I wanted to take these ancient medical treatments and translate them in a way that met the needs of busy New Yorkers.
PURIST: What can readers expect from your new book?
JB: It’s about a subject that is often considered esoteric. The book explains that the human energy field is measurable, and that we are affecting each other energetically in a way that can be measured. For example, at the University of Connecticut, they put two people in separate MRIs, and when one thought healing thoughts about the other, their brain waves synchronized. That’s the same feeling you have when you think about someone and they text you. In the book, I explain why that happens.
PURIST: What do you think can be accredited to the surge in mindfulness and holistic healing, and where do you foresee the medical field heading?
JB: We live in anxiety-provoking times, and I think people are looking for ways to find peace within, rather than looking outside of themselves for solutions. Meditation and breathing techniques have been used for thousands of years to calm the mind, and as an acupuncturist, I know that calming the mind calms the body, and a calm body goes back into homeostasis, where it is capable of healing itself. In Energy Medicine, I take this a step further by looking at a variety of healing prompts that provoke the body’s intelligence to self-heal. These range from acupuncture and hands-on healing to breathing techniques and the placebo effect. I believe that in the future, medical doctors will pay more attention to our self-healing abilities and start to look at these prompts in a more serious way.
