HCI Book Review: Living the EnerQi Connection

During her childhood, Sheri Laine collected plants and cactus needles to use on the “patients” in her “hospital fort.” She would make “medicine teas” from interesting herbs she found while wandering around her Southern California home. At night, she would dream of seemingly random numbers—a ticker tape of digits running through her mind. 

In adulthood, during her studies of natural medicine—and long after her childhood games were forgotten—Laine happened to meet someone who shared her interests and whose friend was studying acupuncture. After being recruited from a treatment, Laine found herself flashing back to her childhood cactus needles and plants in jars. She even recalled that her numerical ticker tape was a reference to numbered meridians on the body. “In that moment,” Laine writes, “I knew I had found my next path—or perhaps my path had found me?”

Living the EnerQi Connection is Laine’s way of sharing her knowledge of Oriental medicine through the LAINE system, which is a mnemonic device:

• Learn 
• Align 
• Inform
• Natural
• Energy

 

Laine’s book takes readers through each part of the LAINE system in order for them to enhance their lives and embrace natural healing. 

In “Learn,” readers will discover EnerQi, the life force that resides within all of us. They will examine its inner workings and realize what happens when EnerQi is blocked. Additionally, Laine describes the elemental attributes—earth, fire, metal, water, wood—and asks that readers think about which one they relate to. 

The “Align” section of the book focuses on restoring balance to the body through diet, exercise, positive thinking, and homeopathics. Readers will find practical advice on meditation, sleep, and eating right. 

“Inform” takes a look at relationships and how they affect Qi and the rest of the body. Laine touches upon issue such as self-sabotage, sexuality, addiction—all things that can be worked on through acupuncture. 

In “Natural,” Laine delves into the practice of acupuncture itself, educating readers about its origins, studies on its efficacy, and how it really works. There is even a chapter on what to expect in your very first acupuncture session. 

“Energy,” the final section, deals with karma and the nature of balance and harmony. Readers will explore how all experiences are “stepping stones to greater awareness and more opportunities.”

 

Throughout Living the EnerQi Connection Laine uses case studies, questionnaires, and testimonies from acupuncture patients to show how Oriental medicine can affect people’s lives for the better. Readers are able to engage the book and the concepts presented through Laine’s writing, which makes Living the EnerQi Connection a great read for counselors, potential students of Oriental medicine, and anyone who is striving towards positive change.