Sowa Rigpa Treatments

Sowa Rigpa is the science of health and happiness and the treatment begins with an exploration of what makes you healthy and happy. Through reflective questioning and in depth pulse reading, we can start to explore your natural make up and which elements are more predominant in your personality. Through this we can understand what makes you happy and what are the pitfalls that you may want to avoid. Simple diet and lifestyle changes can have powerful impacts on your state of well being. Click here to complete your typology questionnaire and get a glimpse of what your elemental typological balance might be.

After exploring your natural state, we start to determine if there are obstacles that are impeding your natural happiness or causing discomfort or dis-ease. We start to explore your physical symptoms or mental symptoms of discomfort. This can be through questioning and discussion along with palpating specific points on the body especially along the spine.

Once we determine together what is causing you discomfort, we can then explore the elemental imbalances that are causing this discomfort. At this point, Sowa Rigpa offers a wide range of treatments which are used for specific elemental typologies and imbalances. Again simple changes in lifestyle and diet, can be effective ways of correcting imbalances. All herbs have elemental properties and as such can also help support the body increase deficient elements or pacify elements that are in excess. We will discuss what options there are for you.

Additionally there are a wide range of what are called "External Therapies" that can be used to support the body and mind's natural ability to regain balance and equilibrium. We will discuss if an external therapy would be useful for you and offer it in the current session or schedule a follow up.

Treatments - External Therapies

Sowa Rigpa External Therapies are physical treatments that are done to to body to support the body's natural ability to regain elemental balance. Some therapies are meant to calm the mind and relax the body, others are intended to revivify ones inner fire, others still have a general cooling effect to connect oneself to solidity and structure. An external therapy will be selected for you that is most effective for your specific typology and symptoms.

There are a wide variety of external therapies that can support the body and mind regain its inner balance. Examples of external therapies include, but are not limited to:

Ku Nye Massage which is a Tibetan Style massage using specific oils to help calm the mind and relieve tension and blockages. Hot Stones can also be added for those requiring extra heat. Alternatively those suffering from extra heat and inner fire, would benefit more from cold stone massage or cold compress therapy.

Moxibustion is a technique which burns moxa beside specific points of the body which also releases blockages and increases inner-fire.

Horme is another effective technique using customised herbs depending on the ailment and wrapping them in cotton. These are then dipped in warm oil and applied to points on the body. This is a very effective technique for calming the nervous system.

Point work (very similar to Acupressure) where points along the spine other points of the body are stimulated in order to remove blockages.

These are just some examples of what treatments could be used to support your healing journey.

The most effective and efficient way to heal is to go through the holistic in-depth approach of reflection and diagnosis, but if you find this too intrusive or overwhelming in the beginning, you may request a specific external therapy without signifcant inner exploration. Limited number of questions will be asked to ensure the therapy is safe for you.

Nejang - Tibetan Yoga

Nejang is a Tibetan Yoga with specific exercizes to promote health and well being. Specific exercizes are used to promote the health of various organs including the digestive system and other functions of the body. If deemed appropriate, you will have the option to learn a few Nejang exercises that you can practice at home.

Determining your Typology

By answering some questions, you can slowly begin to understand which are the dominant elements active in your personality. The questions in this test are derived from the core text of Sowa Rigpa (Gyu Zhi) as distilled by Dr. Nida Chenagtsang in his book Foundations of Sowa Rigpa. Take the test below:

Determine your elemental typology as seen by Sowa Rigpa

Traditional Tibetan Medicine (Sowa Rigpa) sees the individual as being made up by the elements that surround us. These elements are more like "Energetic Potentialities" in the body and mind. There are three energetic potentialities (nyepas):

Loong: this represents the Wind element which is responsible for the body's motility
Tripa: this represents the Fire element which is responsible for heat and metabolism in the body
Beken: this represents the combination of Water and Earth which is responsible for the fluditiy, connectedness and stability of the body

These 3 energies (nyepas) interact differently in every individual and most people have one or two of these energies being more dominant.

When you understand which energies are more dominant in your body and mind, you can understand better what food and lifestyle best suits you and what illnesses and imbalances you are most susceptable to.

Tripa(Fire) and Beken(Earth/Water)

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