Energy medicine strives to improve lives
Karoline Philipp does not consider herself a healer, but her life’s mission remains to help those who are suffering. Although she trained as a nurse, her practice isn’t rooted in traditional ideas of western medicine, though she says her practice can ease physical ailments. With expertise in Bio-Energetic Synchronization Technique (B.E.S.T), chakra alignment, and ancestral energy clearing, in her own words, Philipp is an energy medicine specialist.
“The body’s innate intelligence is what I honour,” she says. “The body knows what it needs. The spirit knows what it needs, and the subconscious has the answers.”
Another way to approach it, she explains, is that her role is to be an interpreter or translator for the body.
In her sessions, Philipp will often begin with what she calls muscle testing, a practice that allows her to communicate with the body and gather information from even the slightest movements. It’s part of the B.E.S.T practice that she is certified in.
“The muscle testing is essential because every step of that process I’m showing the person what’s weak, what’s what, where are the disordinate energies, where are the energies stuck, and I show them within five minutes later it’s strong now, we’re good, it’s clear. That’s every step of the process and to me that’s important. I’m updating their nervous system every little round that we do.”
Philipp considerers B.E.S.T and muscle testing to be her gold standard and something she utilizes with most clients as a diagnostic tool.
“I use muscle testing both at the feet and at the arms. The term muscle testing is a little misleading because we’re not testing the muscle. It’s an applied kinesiology term, where it’s really looking at the neurological response.”
The process itself involves her noting subtle shifts.
“At the feet is where I ask the questions. I’m talking to the body, please show me a yes or please show me a no. When I do that, the legs will shift ever so slightly.”
Philipp likens it to chiropractic adjustments that look for physical shifts to indicate a return to balance in the body, and notes the practice is often used by chiropractors.
But muscle testing isn’t the only tool in her kit. Philipp also uses a method called Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), also known as ‘tapping’ in which users tap certain parts of their body to treat both physical and emotional pain. Taking influence from Chinese medicine and acupuncture, the act of tapping on areas known as meridian points is said to balance energy and in turn relieve or reduce sensations of discomfort and inner turmoil.
“I think about it like, sometimes you need a knife, sometimes you need a fork, sometimes you need a spoon, sometimes you need a spatula,” she says of her various practices.
For some, the idea of energy work might raise eyebrows, but Philipp says that even quantum sciences are starting to understand the impact of energy on matter and, in turn, disease. She also explains that there have been proven links made between adverse childhood experiences and illness later in life. With that proven link comes the understanding that experiences and energy – trauma – stored in the body has a lasting impact on the physical body despite a possible lack of initial bodily harm.
Philipp does not disparage western medicine; she believes it’s an important and vital resource that cannot be fully replaced by the work she does, and that there is value in having various tools at one’s disposal. Just as energy work cannot replace modern medicine, neither can modern treatments replace the healing done through energy focused practices like B.E.S.T and EFT.
Training as a nurse in her early adulthood, Philipp was not aware of the energy practices that would eventually become her life’s work. She says her initial introduction to the idea of believing in energy was reading an article about afterlife experiences from survivors of near-death experiences. Her first interaction with alternative health practices came over 30 years ago when her infant son’s chronic ear infections sent her searching for a remedy beyond antibiotics, which she found in chiropractic care. The relief she found for her son led her to explore the world of alternative health care.
Philipp believes that her work is able to satisfy both the rational and subconscious minds.
“Everything I do brings the body into that parasympathetic nervous state where you can rest, digest, and heal,” she explains.
While many mental loads can be managed through talk therapy and counselling, she believes that energy work allows for a deep understanding without having to unpack or relive disturbing memories.
While Philipp may not heal directly, her work facilitates healing in the body.
“Healing gets established, it starts in the sleep cycle... that’s where healing occurs. Healing does not occur in fight, flight, or freeze. The sad thing is we’re chronically in that state; it’s overwhelming,” she says, explaining that freeze is procrastination, avoidance, and trauma.
While in a state of stress response, the body is greatly impacted.
“The human is designed to survive. That is, it’s not designed to thrive. We are meant to stay in safety to continue, the thriving comes from the heart, it’s the heart that’s magnetic…. It can’t predict the future and the brain is always trying to tell you it can.”
Phillip says people can’t move forward in life until they feel safe, and her goal through best practices such as B.E.S.T, chakra alignment, and ancestral work, is to help her clients establish safety and find the healing they need, no matter who they are.
“It doesn’t matter who comes to my table. I believe, as long as they’re open to this… I can absolutely do something that is going to improve their life.”