MY HEALING BODYWORK EVOLVED OVER 18 YEARS WORKING AS A REGISTERED NURSE. Ever since entering the field of nursing in my early thirties my life has been changed in so many ways... I am a Care-giver, born and raised. Out of my own selfish need to care for others, I have been transformed by the Spirit Path that is commonly called Nursing.

Out of my many experiences caring for thousands of patients I have been granted this amazing privilege: to have witnessed countless acts of human compassion, to have seen so many caregivers commit astounding acts of selfless caring, and to have worked beside so many heroes in the most impossible situations - facing terrible pain, overwhelming fear, catastrophic injury, hopelessness, despair, anger, suffering, and death. As a result I have been left in a permanent state of awe by the noble strength, dignity, and courage of the Human Heart! And I have benefited by constantly being blessed, humbled, and inspired by those in my care. Over these many years - though my original intention for becoming a nurse remains unchanged - my nursing career has changed again and again and again as I encountered metamorphosis after metamorphosis. I have unfolded in ways I never dared dream of...

When I began my nurse's training at Purdue University I never imagined that one day I would create my own hospital-based alternative pain treatment program and that my clinical practice would eventually consist of providing holistic manual therapy treatments of chronic pain sufferers. I could not have possibly foreseen in 1990 that I would eventually receive Chinese, Tibetan, and Hawaiian healing attunements or that I would begin teaching traditional self-healing exercises and meditation to hundreds of people on a national level. In all honesty, on my first day in med-surg clinicals, my only hope was that I might have what it takes to be a good nurse. I never figured on becoming a Neuro-Somatic Healer, a National Board Certified Holistic Nurse (698), a St. John Certified Neuromuscular Therapist, a Certified Lymphedema Therapist (Klose Training Group), or of becoming Nationally Board Certified in Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork. How could I possibly have imagined that I would become a Taiji and Qigong Practitioner, a Zen Instructor, and a Hawaiian Lomi Lomi Healer, and that out of all my training I would synthesize and create my own holistic training program: Caring for the Caregiver™ which I presented at the National Qigong Association's National Conferences in 2004 and 2005, and that my program would be accredited by the American Holistic Nurses Association.

How Caring for the Caregiver Began...

I first became acutely aware of the special pressures, stresses, and needs of caregivers during my experiences as a home-health hospice nurse. Going into people's homes to help prepare patients and their families for death is tough work. Though at times, it was not nearly as exhausting as you probably imagine. In many ways I found hospice nursing extremely rewarding work. Hospice nursing forced me to encounter my own deepest fears and caused me to reevaluate my core values and reexamine my beliefs about death, dying, and the afterlife... Working in hospice helped me clarify exactly what I believe to be important in life and led me to discover so many things I no longer believe to be important at all. Working with the dying helped me feel more alive, caused me to better appreciate what I have and ultimately helped me realize just how fortunate I truly am.

This is not to say that hospice work is easy. In fact it was the most stress-filled, nerve-racking, and emotionally disturbing job I have ever undertaken! But hospice nursing helped me put so much of my life into perspective. By comparison, the hospice nurse's suffering is nothing compared to what the family endures. The hospice nurse has a safety net. They become an "expert" in the dying process. This psychological safety net creates a professional barrier, an emotional "safe space" that helps the nurse endure, detach, and distance them self from the dying process.

As a care-giver myself, I first began to sympathize, then empathize, and then finally experience true compassion for other caregivers. Caring for an ailing loved one is difficult enough. But assuming the role of Primary Caregiver to someone who is terminally ill - actually stepping up and volunteering to stay with it, deal with it, and manage it - day by day, week by week, month after month to the very end, is a monumental act of devotion. It takes a truly special person, a committed person, and a very very strong person to see it through to the end. I could not help but admire the tremendous amount of courage it takes to willingly choose that kind of caring.

Think About Dying For A Moment...

In the hospital it takes teams of physicians, nurses, therapists, pharmacists, nurse's aides, technicians, dieticians, cooks, housekeepers, all working together around the clock to care for our loved ones. But, at home? - at home the entire responsibility usually falls on the shoulders of one person: the Primary Caregiver.

The fact that anyone in their "right mind" would take on such a physically daunting and emotionally draining job is amazing. But when they manage somehow to find the stamina and resilience to see it through, that is truly a Wonder! As a visiting hospice nurse I witnessed this drama and anguish time and again in one form or another everyday; and often, several times a day!

Yes, it was a very difficult job and in the beginning it was exhausting and emotionally painful for me. But in reality, the visiting hospice nurse is very lucky. The visiting nurse goes home at the end of the day. The visiting hospice nurse gets their day off. The visiting nurse has back up. The visiting nurse gets their three weeks of vacation...

Primary Caregivers Are Not So Lucky!

So, I began Caring for Caregivers. I couldn't help it. I felt such sympathy for them, for what they were going through, and for what they had still to endure. Really all I did at first was teach and field questions: questions about pain, questions about medications, and questions that no one has answers for. I could feel the effects this stress was having on me. I couldn't even begin to imagine what it was doing to them! So I naturally and instinctively began to care for the caregivers...

The methods I had been trained in to provide comfort and relief to the dying, I now began using with the my primary caregivers. Soon I began teaching Laying-on-of-Hands techniques to anyone who wanted to learn them. Sometimes entire families wanted to participate and we would work on our patients together. More than once, I witnessed such beautiful and tender caring that it brought me to tears and I would have to dry my eyes before driving to the next home to do it all over again.

Never Underestimate the Power of a Hug!

It seemed to me I was just doing what I instinctively I knew how to do: releasing muscle spasms the way my father had taught me. But the benefits to the primary caregivers went far deeper... Sometimes the whole family wanted to learn how to take away each other's pain, and I would watch with great satisfaction as my caregivers quickly mastered skills that helped them feel less helpless in the face of death. I would arrive at the home and then after checking vitals and medications, after answering questions, making phone calls, or treating wounds, the family and I would do energy-healing together. It was awesome... Easing someone else's pain is actually very easy. The fact is when your heart is truly into it, it only takes a moment or two to take away someone's pain. I really didn't give it a lot of thought though. I am a care-giver. All I cared about was making my patients and their families feel better. The lightest touch for just a few minutes and I could ease tired muscles, calm a migraine headache, or "ground out" their fears and anxiety.

More Nurses Like Dave...

The hospital received several letters from family members expressing their gratitude for my "alternative methods" and suggesting they employ more nurses with my special training. As a result, I was honored as Community Health Ambassador of the Month and invited to join a multi-hospital Pain Task Force. Within a year I was appointed Chairman of an Alternative Therapies Committee and was eventually reassigned from my hospice duties and offered a unique opportunity: the chance to create my own hands-on healing clinic and have the people come to me. The Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration sponsored me as over the course of the next year as I acquired all the necessary credentials to open the first hospital-based neuromuscular pain clinic in the state of Indiana. This opportunity would change my life forever...

My Introduction to Chi-Lel™ Qigong

As part of my initial phase of my research, I attended the 1996 American Humanistic Psychology Conference on Mind-Body Medicine in Indianapolis. A number of renowned pioneers and practitioners of holistic healing were offering workshops to promote their various approaches to integrative medicine. I was deeply impressed by the heart-centeredness and compassion of each of the presenters. But what really blew me away was the Saturday night keynote address given by an unknown Chinese Healer named Luke Chan. This encounter sent my career down an even more unlikely path.

The Fa Qi Circle

To my great good fortune, Master Luke Chan chose not to lecture that evening, but instead demonstrated a group healing technique developed by his teacher: Grandmaster Pang He-Ming, an eastern and western trained research physician from Beijing. Master Chan first showed the assembly a videotape of his visit to Dr. Pang's research center, dubbed: "The World's Largest Medicine-less Hospital," where no medications are used and no special diets. Instead, patients suffering from a various range of "incurable illnesses" are taught the ancient Self-healing Art of Qigong.

We saw large groups of patients - men, women, and children of all ages - performing slow elegant exercises together. We saw teams of teachers moving among the crowd, using their hands to direct healing energy to hundreds of patients at a time. And most amazing, we saw a team of doctors performing a Fa Qi treatment for a patient with bladder cancer.

This was a form of Laying-on of Hands that very few Westerners had ever seen before. As the doctors worked their hands several inches above the patient's abdomen, an ultra-sound technician carefully monitored the small walnut-sized tumor on her screen. While Master Chan kept his video camera trained on the image in the monitor, in the back ground, we could see the team of doctors begin to work more and more intensely on their patient, quickening the pace of their energy treatment in a joint effort. Suddenly on the video we saw the tumor begin to shift and change shape as if dissolving, and then in a matter of moments, it completely disappeared from the screen! After viewing the video, Master Chan told the stunned and curious audience about his book: 101 miracles of Natural Healing - about his personal experiences interviewing patients at the Center and how he had received Grandmaster Pang's permission to teach his qigong methods in the West.

He then explained to us that since we had such a large group - over 500 therapists of one type or another - he wanted to make good use of so much loving energy by demonstrating the healing method just seen in the videotape and actually treat a number of people at the conference who were also suffering from cancer.

The chairs of the auditorium had been prearranged in a large circle and the people in need of treatment were positioned at the center of the group. Master Chan stood on a table so everyone could see him and - like the conductor of an orchestra - led us in the chant: "Hao La, Hao La, Hao La..." - which means in Chinese: Healed! Mission Accomplished!

As we chanted, opening and closing our hands in synchrony with the words, he skillfully guided us through a visualization process designed to unite our intentions into a unified energy field of Love and Compassion.

An intense energy began to fill the auditorium. It grew very warm. Then Hot. Suddenly, it began to feel like electricity was moving through me. I got chills and goose-bumps. The hairs on the back of my neck prickled and stood up. Tears began to well up in my eyes. I had never experienced anything like it before. I could feel how we all wanted to relieve all the pain, the fear, and the sickness caused by Cancer.

The power of so large a group was amazing! I have never experienced anything like it before or since. I could feel my heart going out, as usual, to everyone around me. But more importantly, for the first time, I felt my own unconditional love returning to me - but amplified 500 times! Everywhere around me, tears of compassion were streaming down faces. We were all chanting and weeping and praying in Chinese! Our hands opening and closing in perfect harmony with our "Hao La, Hao La, Hao La..." And then somehow it was over...

Spontaneous Healing Always Happens NOW!

Later on, I introduced myself to Master Chan and told him why I was at the conference; explaining how I was charged with creating a hands-on healing center at our hospital. He asked me one critical question: "Will you also be doing the therapy yourself?" When I replied: "Yes," he then matter-of-factly stated: "Then you need to learn Fa Qi before you give all your Qi away."

This was my introduction to the strange and foreign healing art which the Chinese call "Qigong" - a 5000 year old secret system of Self-healing, Self-nourishing, and Spiritual Development that has only recently been released to the West from behind the Great Wall of Modern Day China. I have been certified to teach Chi-lel™ Qigong Level I and Level II since 1998. I have done many, many healings...

Trial by Fire...

Care giving has always been a Trial-by-Fire process. But we gain something when we allow ourselves to be tempered in the fire, when we learn how to care for others without looking away, when we refuse to close our eyes or our hearts to human suffering. We gain the ability to heal through our acts of Compassion. We learn about Life, about the Human Spirit, and we learn a lot about ourselves. These days, by far, the majority of my patients are caregivers. Not surprisingly, they are most often exhausted, depressed, frustrated, and in pain. They have tried everything they could think of but their pain just keeps coming back. Usually they come to their first visit because someone else told them they should. Sadly, because they are caregivers, they often get up from the table thinking of all the other people they know who need to come see me. Too often they miss there true opportunity to heal themselves. Most come referred by physicians, osteopaths, chiropractors, physical therapists, acupuncturists, massage therapists, and sexual abuse counselors. Word of mouth for my services has spread from Hawaii to Vermont. But in my community, I am most often referred to as "That nurse who teaches Tai Chi."

Whenever my patients achieve pain-breakthrough and once again remember what life feels like to be free of pain, there comes a moment when invariably they ask the same basic questions: "Are there any special exercises that you recommend?" "What can I do to keep the pain from coming back?" "What can I do at home to remain pain-free?" To that, I always smile and say the same thing: "Now you need to learn Qigong."

My Simple Discovery...

When all is said and done the thing that changed me the most was this simple discovery: The very same methods I had been trained in to provide comfort to the dying work even better on the living. In reality, we are all ultimately healed by Death. Death is not to be feared. Death is to be embraced. It is merely the shedding of Form. Nothing more... In truth, it is the living who need comforting; the loved ones who are left behind with our pain and our grief. What I have learned is that in order to care for others, care-givers must somehow learn how to become care-takers... When the Nazarene said, "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first..." What I believe he meant was this: In order to endure we must care for ourselves first.

My Healing Hands...

My hands have washed newborn babies.

My hands have held broken limbs.

My hands have closed eyelids and tied toe tags.

My hands have staunched bleeding and salved burns.

My hands have relieved pain and soothed fear.

My hands have cleaned up vomit, and piss, and shit.

My hands have suctioned and palpated, packed and bandaged.

My hands have pumped the silent chest of an unbeaten heart.

My hands have held the shaking hands of bereft lovers.

My hands have wiped the tears from my own eyes.

Dave Cowan, RN (1996)

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