Blood: The Human Organism's Built In Healer
Blood: The Human Organism's Built In Healer
From its vital physiological functions to its undeniable connection to the human soul and spirit, blood is one of the most important - and, arguably, most mysterious - elements of the human organism.
Dear friends,
Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt your cheeks blush in embarrassment or self consciousness. 🙋🏻♀️
At first glance, it’s difficult to see what the phenomenon of embarrassment has to do with the following; but once you “see” it you will not be able to unsee it.
We’ve all heard that we should “warm up” before lifting weights by walking on the treadmill or going for an easy jog.
And, like me, you’ve no doubt watched at least one movie or television show that included a dramatized accident where the lead character was in danger of dying because they were losing too much blood.
When it comes to the human organism, warmth is connected to blood; and blood is life. A dead body is cold; it lacks the warmth created by circulating blood.
Blood is, arguably, the most important and mysterious element of the human organism.
It appears to me that blood has been so universally acknowledged as a vital physical necessity in all cultures and healing professions that its more mysterious spiritual properties have escaped attention; they’ve been “hiding in plain sight.”
Let’s take a closer look. 👀
The miraculous intelligence of blood.
If you’ve ever cut yourself, then you know how rapidly your body congeals blood at the incision site - to stop you from bleeding out, and to form a protective barrier between the vulnerable insides of your body and the [potentially harmful] elements of the external world.
Acute injuries typically result in rapid swelling of the injured area, which is the body’s way of isolating the damaged tissues for regeneration by making the cell walls temporarily more permeable so blood and its life saving nutrients can get to the injured area faster than normal while dead and toxic cells are moved out. Which is why I NEVER ice an acute injury.
In 2020, I ruptured my MCL (an important knee ligament), and my left knee swelled to twice its normal size. My primary goal for healing rapidly was to optimize blood circulation throughout my whole body. I did this by drinking brewed cacao (cacao increases nitric oxide in the body, which widens blood vessels); by doing lots of Kinetix; by walking every day; and by applying heat to my left knee, calf and thigh in the hours and days after the injury. Two weeks later I had no pain; nine months later I was trail running again. This is the power of applying human intelligence to the wisdom of nature.
With enough blood, the human body can regrow - even reattach! - ruptured tendons and ligaments.
We all know that if we lose too much blood, we will die.
Blood is life. Literally.
When a hospital patient’s heart stops, the life saving protocol is to electrocute the heart. Why? The heart has its own electrical field and acts like a suctioning vortex that moves blood through the body. If the blood stops moving, we die. So we electrocute the heart in an attempt to sustain its electrical activity. What we fail to “see” in this scenario is the withdrawal of the unique soul inhabiting the body; when the soul and spirit depart, the blood stops. We are sometimes successful in “bringing people back” by applying electricity to the heart.
People can even be pronounced brain dead, but as long as their heart is still beating and the blood is flowing, they are technically alive. Some people even wake up years after entering a coma (which is associated with the brain, not the heart), and many of them have vivid memories of everything that was said aloud in their hospital room over the years!
Everybody knows that engaging in difficult workouts like lifting weights or sprinting results in rapid circulation of blood through the body, producing thermal energy called heat. When we get really hot, we turn red and sweat.
Fever - heat - occurs when blood is moved rapidly through the body while it’s at rest; the body does this when it senses we need to expel foreign elements, kill pathogenic bacteria and/or get lifesaving blood to degenerating or poisoned tissues.
And if you suffer from cold hands and feet, or more serious issues like reynaud’s or neuropathy, then you know how important blood circulation is.
The reason neuropathy can lead to infection, gangrene and amputation (which happened to my dad 😢) is because the feet - and in rare cases, the hands - are not getting enough blood to regenerate the nerves and tissues there. Bacteria are merely symptomatic, like firefighters arriving to the site of a fire; they are doing what bacteria are supposed to do: eating decaying tissues in order to break them down, returning the material elements of plant and animal bodies back to the earth.
To get to the heart of the matter, we ought to be asking:
Why do tissues degenerate in otherwise healthy adults?
Why do young children heal so quickly?
Why do some adults bruise or injure easily, and heal slowly - while others heal rapidly?
Why do joints develop inflammation (otherwise known as tendonitis, bursitis, arthritis etc)?
Why is cardiovascular (blood vessel) health regarded as critical to human vitality, while cardiovascular disease is considered to be the leading cause of deaths globally?
Why is modern science using fetal stem cells and “young” blood transfusions (which I do NOT endorse) to heal injuries faster and reverse the aging process?
Why do the eating habits and memories of people who died and donated organs - such as their heart or kidney - make themselves manifest in the bodies and minds of their new owners? (Organs inside a dead body would need to be taken out right away and kept “alive” - aka, full of blood - until the transplant).
FYI - I don’t always answer the questions I ask in my writings. Instead, I like to ponder them with you. I like to provoke curiosity and critical thinking. So please don’t expect answers to the specific questions above 🙃.
We’re going to meander through the esoteric, below; and then return to the practical ways in which I use my current knowledge about blood to think about root causes of pain, degeneration and disease; and how to heal.
Blood and the human soul + spirit.
If you’ve ever experienced sudden acute embarrassment or shame, then you probably felt your body flush with heat; maybe your cheeks (like mine) turn bright red every time this happens.
The heat and the bright red cheeks are a result of a rapid increase in blood circulation.
Have you seen someone undergo an acute experience of terror or dread? If so, then you probably noticed their face turn ghostly pale.
I know you’ve felt the blood drain from your hands and feet at least once in your life when you’ve been immobilized by shock or fear; just as I know you’ve felt the heat of anger flood your face and arms as your body entered fight mode.
Nervousness, as we all know, is associated with a pounding heart and sweaty palms. What exactly is happening when we break out into a “cold sweat”?
Too often, we neglect to connect physiological phenomena like the movement of blood within the human organism with the spiritual realities underlying human nature.
Observable to anyone willing to study the living phenomena of human beings, blood is clearly connected to our unique - and highly individual - soul and spiritual nature.
What you find embarrassing, for example, I might experience as fun; and what I find deeply shameful, you may find genuinely unconcerning.
We experience similar physiological phenomena for uniquely psychological reasons.
Furthermore, modern science tells us that the heart has its own type of muscle tissue that contracts without our conscious involvement; but there is plenty of evidence, both modern and ancient, suggesting that we have tremendous control - through the power of breath and meditation, for example - over how fast or slow our heart beats.
And if you’ve ever felt grief or the heart pangs of love, then you know just how connected your physical heart is to your inner life of emotions. Blood and feelings are intimately connected.
Since the heart is the primary mover of blood in the body, we really should be asking:
▶ What is the connection between the emotional and physical heart of the human being?
▶ And what effect does our feeling life have on the specific ways that blood moves - and doesn’t move - throughout our body at different times in our lives?
To take this exploration a bit further, let’s consider movement, motivation and human will.
Muscles require oxygen and blood to contract; oxygen is delivered to those muscles via blood.
Most human movements require voluntary, conscious execution.
Motivated by subconscious drivers, we learned how to initiate our own movement as infants: first, by picking up our head in order to look around. Then, as soon as we saw something we wanted to move towards, we began to roll over - which is always initiated by looking in the direction we wish to move, creating connections between vision and the will to act. After that we learned how to crawl; and at some point, through sheer determination, we picked our jiggly little legs off the floor and stood upright, took a few unstable steps and fell back to earth.
Eventually, we mastered the art of walking towards all the goals of our unfolding life: new toys and playmates, the comforting hug of mom or dad, friendships, school, a potential mate, or a long walk up a mountain.
Muscle control and the execution of consciously directed movement, for all of us, was a learned skill that was - and still is - both physiological and psychological in nature.
What does this have to do with blood, you might be wondering?
I’ve observed patterns in the people I know - myself, family, friends and clients alike - that suggest our ability to act - our capacity for intrinsic motivation or the will to do anything, from washing the dishes to approaching someone we find attractive - is dependent on, or more accurately reflected by, the patterns of blood circulation in our body.
Intrinsically motivated people - those who are able to act on the internal commands of their own conscience and move towards inspiring goals - tend to have good blood circulation.
Conversely, people who lack intrinsic motivation - those who feel chronically fearful, overwhelmed, stuck, frustrated and lacking forward momentum in life - tend to exhibit signs and symptoms of poor blood circulation. These are people who prioritize moving away from what they fear and don’t want, rather than moving towards a positive vision or inspiring goal.
A good question to ponder: 🤔
Which comes first - the blood circulation, or the will to act?
To complicate matters further, we can observe impulsive will in people who tend to jump into action a little too quickly; physiologically, we would likely find blood that is moving a bit too rapidly in these people along with accompanying symptoms.
Practical considerations for unlocking the power of your body’s built in healer: blood.
I’ve personally experienced (in my own body) or witnessed (in the bodies of others) that strategic optimization of blood circulation has the power to reverse or resolve the following:
Injuries to tendons, ligaments, muscles and joints involving traumas, accidents, surgeries, or the damaging effect of impact from falls or repeated physical abuse
Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
Poor eyesight
Eye strain/eye pain
Tension headaches
Torn or ruptured tendons and ligaments
Degenerating, painful or dysfunctional organs
Gut issues of all kinds
Cold hands and feet
Chronic inflammation
Neuropathy
Low internal temperature of the extremities
Degenerative disc disease
All the itis’s: tendonitis, bursitis, arthritis etc
Lipodema
Lymphedema
asthma
chronic infections
and more
If you or someone you love is experiencing any of the above, a very good starting place for thinking about root causes is to investigate whether or not blood is getting to the affected area.
If you’d like to be truly scientific about this, you could adopt the theory that blood is NOT getting to affected area and then implement one strategy at a time to increase blood to the affected area - and see what happens. Along the way, you’ll either discover that the theory was right; or learn something new that you can use to form a different theory.
There are a lot of ways to get this data (about blood circulation issues): visual observation, physical palpation, making a list of symptoms suggestive of poor circulation (whether or not those symptoms are related to the issue at hand), and subjective self assessment; to name a few.
Three really good questions to ask:
1. Where exactly is the blood likely being blocked?
2. Why is the blood blocked in that specific area (once identified)?
3. Why is blood moving sluggishly body-wide (if poor blood circulation generally is the working theory)?
Some examples to spark your curiosity and personal investigations:
🩸 Restricted fascia in the gut, as I reported last week, can lead to the development of heel spurs (or degeneration anywhere in the body).
🩸 Fascial constrictions in the neck can lead to tension headaches, poor eyesight and inability to heal from brain injuries (because blood needs to flow freely through the neck to reach the occipital muscles, jaw, eyes, brain and face).
It’s important to not stop here, though, and ask: Why is the neck fascia so tight?
It could be from looking down at phones and computers all day; from taking over for lack of core strength or pelvic instability during activities that require a stable spine; or it could be from self censorship and “biting your tongue” or “swallowing your words”; from people pleasing behavior, or suppressing anger.
🩸 Lack of willpower or inability to follow through on personal goals can lead to sluggish blood body-wide, which turns into a vicious cycle.
🩸 Exposure to unhealthy levels of electromagnetism can cause deformation of fascia, which is piezoelectric.
🩸 Childhood sexual trauma can cause dissociation from the part of the body that was violated, leading to numbness in the pelvic region and lack of nervous system feedback necessary for proper blood circulation and organ function. Increasing blood circulation to this area can cause emotional releases and restore forgotten memories of the events.
The above are just a few examples.
By now, I expect you’re wondering above all:
What is the best way to optimize blood circulation?
I will give you a few other ideas below, but I have yet to find anything as powerful, fast and long lasting as Kinetix - my method of partner fascia release. I’m certainly biased, but I will choose Kinetix over every other option for myself whenever possible.
This is because Kinetix uses body weight and gravity to COMPRESS large areas of the body (which is NOT accomplished when using other tools like thumbs, elbows and most manual therapy tools). This kind of broad, weighted compression flushes the body of toxic waste and rapidly brings in fresh oxygenated blood to areas that are most in need of it.
The shearing part of the “compress and shear” technique that I teach is what UNBLOCKS areas of restricted fascia by unsticking fascial fibers that have become gluey and stuck together in knots or balls. Meanwhile, the heat created by increasing blood flow combined with friction, movement and body to body contact helps to soften scar tissue and areas of density.
This rapid increase in blood circulation is one reason I am devoted to teaching Kinetix to as many partners, friends, family members and professionals as I can.
Blood heals, and self fascia release simply CANNOT - even if performed with the best tools and utmost skill - create the kind of rapid fluid/lymph flushing and blood circulation that Kinetix can. It would take MONTHS of devoted self fascia release to get the results that are possible in just ONE one-hour Kinetix session.
Grab a partner if you’re inspired and join me inside the Academy 👣 🥰
If you don’t want to learn Kinetix or don’t have a partner, then consider the following to increase blood circulation:
♥️ Avoid (whenever possible) harmful influences like toxins, EMFs, involuntary stress and unhealthy movement patterns.
♥️ Drink brewed cacao (I love this brand).
♥️ Add cayenne to your diet.
♥️ Walk. Every day. Preferably barefoot on sand or grass (for grounding).
♥️ Submerge your whole body in very cold water, like a mountain river. Ideally you will submerge even your head, going all the way under at first and then leaving just your nose, mouth and eyes out of the water. This will include the muscles and blood vessels of your brain and skull in the process of cold submersion. *Whole body submersion, when performed with appropriate knowledge of the risks and awareness of how to do it properly, can dramatically increase whole body blood circulation, while icing only one part of the body - like an injury - tends to decrease blood circulation to the exposed area, which is why I NEVER ice acute injuries.
♥️ Use breath to oxygenate your body and move your blood.
♥️ Get help from a skilled practitioner to release the fascial knots blocking blood flow in your body.
What would you add to the above list?
This piece of writing has inspired me to consider creating a course on the mysteries and healing power of blood.
Would a course like this be something you’d pay to join? Please hit reply or comment below.
I’ll be exploring this topic a lot more in the future!
With love,
Elisha