It all started when I was in my mid twenties, with a small pain in the abdomen, that became most acute when I would bend over. Little did I know how this little pain would force me to make big changes in my life. I did what most people would do when seeking to address something health related: I made an ap-pointment with my doctor. After extensive testing, everything we tried was inconclusive. Over the course of a year, the pain spread down the right leg and across the lower back. I pretty much just dragged my right leg around. My abdomen slowly swelled until there was a constant state of discom-forting distention. My skin turned a pasty shade of gray with tiny bumps, the greatest concentration being on my back. Looking back on it now, I can understand that my skin looked this way because it was the only organ still detoxifying my entire body. Due to my declining condition, my doctor suggested we try ex-ploratory surgery. My doctor and I discussed best and worst possible scenarios; the worst case would be that they might have to start removing organs. I clearly remember the moment I regained consciousness in the recovery room. My doctor would not make eye contact with me, and I was thinking, “This can’t be good.” He said, “I have some good news and some bad news. I’ll start with the good news. We did not take anything out; you still have all your organs. The bad news is that every organ from your stomach to your colon is in crisis.” Your liver and small intestine are the worst. I could flip this quarter to determine which organ will shut down first, but most likely you are going to die from either the liver or small intestine shutting down, and I do not know why.” Looking back on it now, I can see that this specialist, unintentionally, did me the biggest favor of my life. I heard about a rare Chinese form of internal organ massage called Chi Nei Tsang, and decided to try it. Fortunately for me, I stumbled into the office of Gilles Marin, the foremost master in this technique. He worked on me for about ten minutes and then said, “Okay, I am going to tell you what is wrong with you. I’m warning you now it is going to be extremely hard for you to hear, because you have been diagnosed as terminal and been through so much pain for so long. The problem with you is that you are not breath-ing correctly.” My first thought was, “If it was my breathing, I would have been dead long before now.” Gilles explained that breathing is how we digest our emotions, thoughts and experiences, as well as sup-ply oxygen to the body. “You have absorbed as much fear as a person can, and still be alive, but just barely alive.” Gilles further explained, “The diaphragm in the body is designed to move downwards on the inhale. Yours is moving in exactly the opposite direction. Instead of going down, it is coming up. It is pulled up so high in the front of your body it is pinching off your liver meridian, cutting off your liver from desperately needed Chi, life force, energy. Your liver is hanging on by a thread now because the flow of energy has been choked off for so long. The result is the liver and the liver meridian are swollen and in crisis. The liver me-ridian comes closest to the surface of the skin where the most nerve endings are, and then dives back down here, here and here (those three spots). So that is where you would be experiencing the most pain. When you learn how to breathe correctly and bring the diaphragm back down, the flow of energy will be restored to your liver, and it will come right back, because there is nothing wrong with your liver. Your doc-tors were right about one thing, you will die if you do not change how you breathe. But you do not have to die, you can reverse this.” In ten minutes this guy explained my pain, how I got it, and what I needed to do to recover fully from it. Chi Nei Tsang is designed to be self-administered, so I spent the next several years studying with Gilles. The first year of the recovery process was extremely intense. In addition to retraining the respiration and the actual physical manipulation of the internal organs, an emotional exorcism occurs. The massage is about purging the body of negative emotions and bringing consciousness back to the core of the body. The day of the appointment I would feel great. I could tell I was improving dramatically. Then the next day, I would be an emotional basket case. The fear would just start pouring out of me. During that first year I also experienced profound changes in the myofacial tissue that surrounds the in-ternal organs. The tissue, responding to years of fear stimuli, had grown very tight and had a death grip around the organs. The combination of the breathing exercises and the emotional releases from organ manipulation caused the tissue to rip loose from the inside out, finally permitting the organs to relax. The sensation of the tissue tearing loose inside the body was a bizarre combination of blinding pain followed by the sweet bliss of relief and healing. My prayer for you would be that you are never faced with overcoming two terminal diagnoses in your life-time. And if that does find you or a loved one, know you are powerful beyond measure, and there is a wealth of life saving complementary and alternative health wisdom out there for you to discover. Vaishali is the author of Wisdom Rising and You Are What You Love. She is a and an interna-tional health & wellness speaker who has appeared on The Dr. Oz Radio Show and Oprah.com. Vaishali learned to transform her life from the threat of two terminal disease diagnoses, domes-tic abuse and financial devastation. Completely recovered, she shares her wisdom @ www.purplev.com/mediakitJoin Vaishali in St. Louis May 4th and 5th, 2013 at ”A Gathering Place-Massage Therapy School” for a one or two day workshop.