When most of us get ill, blaming “troubled chakras” is the last thing that we would think to do. But Sue Imms, 42, believes that blocked energy points around her abdomen were the underlying cause of her chronic irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and that a holistic treatment called Bi-Aura therapy not only relieved her of her symptoms but stopped her from sinking into depression.
Imms was 38 when she first suspected that she might be suffering from IBS. She had been having terrible anxiety attacks since the birth of her son, Oliver, then 4, and noticed that it was taking a physical toll on her health. “I just couldn’t relax,” she recalls. “I had sweats and felt constantly on edge. I was bottling up my emotions, I wasn’t exercising and my diet was absolutely awful. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I developed IBS, with severe stomach pains, constipation and bloatedness.”
Imms believes that the anxiety she felt came from the shock of having a Caesarean birth and her problems adjusting to motherhood. Previously, she had given up her job training shop staff to be a stay-at-home mother. “I wasn’t a very maternal person, so I found the whole thing a big culture shock,” she says. “There was a big void in my life that I couldn’t really deal with.”
She first saw her GP in 2003 and, after an ultrasound scan was told that she had IBS. According to the Digestive Disorders Foundation, a third of people in Britain have occasional symptoms of IBS and one person in ten has symptoms bad enough to require medical attention. It commonly affects people aged between 15 and 40 but can occur at any age. The symptoms appear to be due to an increased sensitivity of the bowel, but the cause is not yet fully understood. Anxiety and stress are commonly associated with the disorder.
Imms was also warned that she was on the brink of depression. Her doctor suggested joining a therapy group, but the idea didn’t appeal to her. Instead she began to look for alternative health therapies. It was then that she read about Bi-Aura in a magazine.
Bi-Aura may sound like the name of a probiotic drink, but it is a system of healing that practitioners claim works by cleansing the electromagnetic energy field around the body — the “aura” — to activate its natural recovery potential. The therapist passes her hands over the person’s body, usually without touching, feeling for blockages in the aura’s seven main energy centres, known as “chakras”. Once trapped energy is removed, practitioners believe that energy flows back into the areas that were previously depleted, so the person becomes healthy again.
Imms liked the idea of a treatment that didn’t involve being poked or prodded. She contacted the Bi-Aura Foundation, which recommended a therapist in her area, Lesley Gibson. Gibson had trained at the foundation in London and had set herself up as a healer in Surrey six years ago. At the first hour-long consultation, Gibson took a medical history before doing a “scan” of Imms by passing her hands around her body.
“This basically gives us a picture of how the energy is flowing,” Gibson says. “We believe that people have two main chakras in the body: the ‘crown’ chakra at the head, which takes in cosmic energy from the Universe, and the “root” chakra at the base of the spine, which takes in Earth energy. When all seven chakras are working correctly, energy flows properly between these two and the person is healthy. When the chakras start to shut down — usually as a result of not releasing energy properly after a stressful event — emotional, mental and physical illnesses can ensue.”
Gibson believed that Imms had blockages in her solar plexus and root chakras. She feels that these were caused by Imms suppressing her emotions, and had led directly to the IBS and anxiety attacks. She immediately began to work on clearing the blockages by passing her hands around Imms’s body.
“In Bi-Aura, we use our hands like magnets to pull the trapped energy out of the body and to release it back into the Universe as white light,” Gibson says. “You then bring cosmic energy over the aura to cleanse and flush out the flow of energy through the system.”
It sounds about as convincing as spritzing the body in patchouli oil, but Imms claims that she felt tangible physical sensations during the 45-minute cleansing. “I got pins and needles in my feet, which Lesley explained was all the energy coming out of my system. It was a very releasing experience,” she says.
Gibson encourages her clients to have a course of three or four initial once-a-week treatments, then top-up sessions as required. Although Imms didn’t feel any different after her initial session, she was encouraged by the unusual experience and returned for her follow-up appointments. At Gibson’s suggestion she simultaneously began to make changes in her life. She started eating more healthily, drinking lots of water and hired a personal trainer to help her exercise. She began learning to relax.
“The sessions opened my eyes to the fact that I could create ‘me’ time,” she says. “I started listening to music at home and burning essential oils. I also began doing t’ai chi stretches that Lesley taught me, which made me more aware of myself and chilled-out.”
Gradually, she noticed that her IBS was improving. “It was a slow process, rather like when you cut your finger, then suddenly realise that it has healed.” After three Bi-Aura sessions, she reduced her appointments to once a month, then once every three months until, after a year, she felt that she was IBS-free. “I’m a changed person. I no longer get so uptight about things. When my rabbit died, instead of going to pieces, I dealt with it.” She also coped well with the birth of a daughter eight months ago.
Imms acknowledges that Bi-Aura sounds like the sort of treatment that has no place outside the healing fields of Glastonbury. “How can someone waving their arms all over you work?” Yet, despite her scepticism, she maintains that it has changed her life. “Maybe it was psychosomatic. But I believed in it and that helped me.”
What is it?
Bi-Aura therapy is a healing system that claims to work by “balancing” the human “aura”. Practitioners believe that a stressed aura can lead to illness. Suitable for? Digestive problems, arthritis, depression, headaches and migraines, allergies, asthma, back pain, rheumatism and sciatica.
Cost
Therapists charge about £35 a session.
Contact
www.bi-aura.com or call the Bi-Aura Foundation on 01661 844899
What's the evidence?
Is Bi-Aura therapy effective for IBS?
Possibly, but there do not appear to be any clinical trials of this. Therefore it is impossible to offer an objective view on its effectiveness.
What can be said about the treatment?
IBS is known to be linked to stress. Sue Imms identified her stress as a cause and the Bi-Aura therapy clearly helped her relax. Her new exercise regimen would help to reduce stress, as would eating healthily.
Was it psychosomatic?
IBS is known to respond to the placebo effect. An analysis last year of 45 trials of IBS, by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, in Boston, showed that patients who received a placebo improved by about 40 per cent on average.
Dr Toby Murcott is a former BBC science correspondent
