The Value of this Course for Self Help and Health Practitioners:
This form of acupuncture is very easy to learn and to use. Using the ear acupuncture points chart, the points are easily located. Some knowledge of the acupuncture meridians is helpful but not crucial for learning this system. Because the ear clearly shows signs of any health problems in the form of marks, textures and swellings, anyone can learn to analyze and safely put pressure on acupuncture points associated with body pain or problems.
The course will cover basic acupuncture and TCM information but this is not an accredited class in acupuncture or TCM philosophy. It is a practical “hands-on” course that almost everyone will find immediately useful. Students will be able to begin practicing “reading ears” and safely and simply relieving pain by putting pressure on the ear acupuncture points for themselves and others just by taking this introductory course.
The course also offers students the opportunity to work individually with Mike’s immediate supervision to have their own ear points analyzed and any pain released immediately.

Health Practitioners
Healers practicing any modalities such as Reiki, Cranial Sacral, Reflexology, Homeopathy, Massage, etc will find this course to be very helpful and immediately useful as a diagnostic tool and a healing skill to add to their repertoire.

Pain Management
Anyone with ongoing pain/health issues and interested in being able to alleviate pain themselves or who are in the position to help others with pain issues will learn immediately useful ways to stop pain. The practical benefits are put into context by Mike who explains the basics of traditional Chinese medical philosophy. This approach is very different from the current Western medical model, which has very limited “self help” information and practices. Most of our students are grateful to discover that this healing model offers help and relief without the use of drugs or surgery as well as teaching them a different view of well-being and healing.

Basic Concepts for Students:
1. How and Why Auriculotherapy (Ear Acupressure) is so Effective
2. A Primer on The Chinese View of Health and Dis-Ease
3. Using Ear Acupuncture Points as a Diagnostic Tool
4. Healthy and Pain Free with Acupuncture Modalities

1. How and Why Auriculotherapy (Ear Acupressure) is so Effective
The Power of the Ear
Auriculotherapy is uniquely easy to learn and practice. Because of the location and sensitivity of the ear, it is the perfect healing tool. The ear is not walked on or needed for any movement (as compared to the feet in foot reflexology, for example) so long term healing processes are possible with the ear acupuncture system. This means that Mike can tape seeds onto the ear acupuncture points that are actively useful for 3 to 5 days. Patients can press the seeds once every hour that they remember (or more often as needed) and give themselves a healing treatment each time. This makes the process highly effective and also gives the patient personal “hands-on” self-healing empowerment.

Taking Away the Pain
The ear seems to be very sensitive to this healing pressure as instant pain relief from even the most difficult and long-standing conditions happens for everyone. Mike does this healing publicly at many trade shows and events, including the PNE in Vancouver, and without fail people’s pain stops immediately. Many people are entirely sceptical, even resistant, but when they experience the immediate results of this healing modality, they are convinced and amazed that the overwhelming pain they’ve experienced sometimes for years can be stopped instantly.

Mustard Seed Miracles
The ear is also a useful healing template because needles and other invasive healing modalities are not required. Instead of needles, Mike uses mustard seeds & surgical tape to position the pressure point that the patient can activate. This allows for simplicity, exact placement on the points, self-regulation of pressure, inexpensive treatments, long term placement (3 to 5 days usually) for patient self-healing control, no allergy reactions and even environmentally friendly materials. It is also possible to use only pressure on the ear acupuncture points to achieve instant pain relief—use of the seeds and surgical tape method allows for long-term location and pressure for the patient to continue their own self-treatment. Training time and expertise depend entirely on the motivation and aptitude of the student.

Practicing this Powerful Healing Tool
We have been delighted to see that the same pain-relieving results are true for Mike’s newly trained students. Several students have begun attending public events with us to practice their auriculotherapy skills on the large numbers of people who come to our booths and to put their analyzing and seed-taping skills to the test. As soon as they locate exactly the right acupuncture points on the ear, people’s pain stops This demonstrates that once learned, the system can be used by anyone.

Exceptions
Because this is a natural, normal “built-in” physiological process in everyone’s body, there are but a few exceptions to this pain-relief. When people are on painkillers or strong medications their bodies are numbed to the pain and the body’s physiological responses are slowed or turned off. As a result, they are not able to feel the pain and so cannot experience the pain relief. However, usually as soon as the effects of the painkiller begins to wear off, they notice that the pain does not return as usual.
Patients who have been on painkillers, strong medications, heavy doses or difficult combinations of pharmaceuticals for several months or more, often require a longer healing time as it takes the body some time to clear the medications and their side-effects totally out of their systems. These patients usually see Mike quite often for a few weeks to overcome the “vicious cycle” of taking painkillers to stop the pain caused by the damage caused by the painkillers themselves. Some common over-the-counter painkilling medications are the worst offenders in this regard.
Sometimes the problem calls for long term solutions, lower spinal damage, where their pain is immediately relieved but as soon as they move, the damaged area is “re-traumatized” and the pain returns before they even stand up. In cases like this the patients should be resting flat on their backs for a week or so until the body is able to heal the condition to the point where it is not so critical.
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2. A Primer on The Chinese View of Health and DisEase
Our Body’s Natural Healing Ability
Our bodies have a natural healing / regeneration system that Mike taps into in his healing work. Knowing all of the ear acupuncture points, he can look at anyone’s ear and, analyzing minute marks, colours and textures, and give a very accurate account of injuries, illnesses, surgeries and many other aspects of a person’s state of health.

The 100 Percent Health Standard: Prevention is Key
Mike’s standard is aimed at 100 percent health, unlike the commonly used Western medical standard which recognizes disease at about the 40 percent health level. He recognizes and alerts people to health conditions and challenges that range from headaches to arthritis to diabetes and beyond. Patients appreciate the opportunity to address health issues when they are relatively easy to treat and before they become serious health problems.

Ear Acupuncture Points Chart the Body (View Ear Chart)
The ear has acupuncture points for the entire body. Looking at the chart of the ear acupuncture points, one can see the general shape of a fetus turned upside down, with the acupuncture points for the head, brain, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, etc. located on the lobe of the ear. Following this pattern the ridge along the back of the ear is the spine with the neck and shoulder points just above the lobe (with the ear positioned normally upwards), mid back and lower back points above each other along the ridge. In front of the ridge is the indentation around the inner ear hole representing the upper cavity of the body’s torso with points for lungs, heart, ribs, etc.
Above that is a smaller ridge representing the diaphragm with points on the lower edge for the stomach and along the upper edge for the gallbladder with small and large intestine points in the ear indentation above that representing the abdominal cavity of the body.
At the top end of the large “spinal” ridge are points for hips, knees, ankles, feet and all the other leg acupuncture points and parallel to these points on the back side of this ridge are points for elbows, wrists, hands and other arm points.
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3. Using Ear Acupuncture Points as a Diagnostic Tool
The Ear is a brilliant communicator: if you know what to look for, your entire medical history is written there.
Mike knows that black or brown marks or moles indicate old injuries or traumas to the body. Current inflammations are red swollen areas on the ear. A pimple marks the spot of an infection in the body. Surgeries show up as a scar and/or small hole.
Back injuries show up as bumps in the spinal ridge area—Mike can even name the exact vertebrae that have been affected. Most common ailments that show up are stiffness in the spine and other areas of the body representing arthritis in various stages. Most arthritis begins with poor circulation causing build up of toxins and waste materials that the body can’t deal with because of lack of energy, lack of nutrition, lack of circulation, etc. These wastes / toxins are then deposited by the body in joints, arteries, fat cells and other locations away from major organs which are vulnerable to damage from these toxins.

Toxins Cause Pain When The Body Can’t Clear Them Effectively
Toxins can be the normal wear-and-tear wastes of the body but the most dangerous toxins are the residue of chemicals from medications, processed foods, pollution, and, yes, alcohol, etc. The body is not equipped to deal with these unnatural elements and so stores them away in fat cells, joints, arteries and other locations like pockets under the skin until it has the resources to eliminate them. Bodies that are over-stressed through anxiety, trauma, lack of sleep, poor nutrition, overwork, and pollution do not have the extra resources necessary to process these toxins effectively, leading to cumulative buildup of wastes and the eroding of the body’s ability to maintain a normal level of health.
Many toxins like heavy metals and manmade chemicals are actually cleared from the body by being stored in cells and, when the cells die, the toxins are cleansed out of the body in the dead cells. This is a natural process that protects the vulnerable vital organs from being damaged by dangerous substances.

The Problem with Painkillers
Painkillers create a “vicious cycle” of ongoing pain in several ways:
1) they only remove the symptoms of pain and don’t heal the underlying problem;
2) they stop the body’s natural peristaltic movement in the intestines, which exacerbates any blockages and actually creates more pain;
3) the chemicals in medications end up “backing up” into the gallbladder where they become highly concentrated (it is the natural function of the gallbladder to aid in breaking down difficult-to-digest substances).
4) this concentration causes more pain, which is reflected in the gallbladder meridian that also runs across the shoulders.
The result—more pain, more medication, more exacerbation and a continuing cycle of pain without genuine healing.
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4. Healthy and Pain Free with Acupuncture Modalities
Acupuncture, Acupressure, Moxibustion, Laser and Electricity Treatments
In Chinese the words and concepts associated with the treatments we commonly call “Acupuncture” in the West relate to the idea of releasing blockages to energy flow in the body’s meridians or energy pathways through many types of treatments. In the West we have used the term “puncture” as part of “acupuncture” without fully understanding the importance of the energy movement as opposed to the concept of putting needles into the “acupuncture” points.

The Acupuncture System is a Physical Communication System
We get sidetracked into defining “Acupuncture” as a needle-invasive (my opinion) treatment when, to the Chinese, the important concept is that our bodies have an intricate communication / healing / pain-relief / energy movement system built into our normal physical functioning that is constantly and automatically working on many levels without requiring any conscious monitoring from us.

Pain is a Wake up Call for a Physical Problem
Pain, for instance, is a normal physiological reaction that helps alert us when conscious monitoring does become necessary. Even then we can unconsciously massage a sore spot on our arm without even knowing that the spot is an important “acupuncture” point and that by putting pressure on it, an electrical/chemical reaction is stimulated that overcomes some problem in our physical functioning.

Pressure Points are an Organic Feedback Loop
This simple massage stimulates an electrical message sending for a healing response through the meridian and thereby completing an electrical circuit (an acupuncture meridian). This circuit is a feedback loop designed to set off a complex set of self-regulating physical reactions to respond to problems that may be located in another part of the body.
For example, acupuncture points commonly become painful on the shoulders where the acupuncture meridians for the large and small intestines and gallbladder cross along the top of the shoulders. We imagine our shoulders are sore from computer work or stress, etc., and fail to understand the connection between the shoulder pain to the constipation, diarrhea, bloating or other condition we are experiencing in our digestive systems.
Massaging the shoulders may relieve the condition depending on the severity of the intestinal problem or the lifestyle practices that may continue to exacerbate the condition. Unfortunately we often take a painkiller or anti-inflammatory medication to relieve on-going pain if we don’t know that the acupuncture meridians are sending us information about these intestinal problems.

Acupuncture Meridians are a Map of Energy
We have 14 Acupuncture Meridians running, for the most part, from toe to head or finger to head, some with zigzags around the torso and face. These are fluid energy and information pathways that link the extremities to the organs and vice versa.
There are physiological reasons for the locations of the meridians. For instance, some of the meridians on the arms are associated with the Large Intestine, Small Intestine, Lungs, and Heart. Thus when you begin to move your arms to perform some physical activity, these meridians / communication conduits transmit messages to the various organs to alert them that some exertion is beginning so digestion, heart rate and lung activity (along with innumerable other physiological processes) are stimulated to create the energy and body capacity that will be required to complete the activity.
Learning where they are located is like learning where organs are in the body: it’s a map delineating the energy pathways. It is very ancient and has proved extremely valuable for over 5000 years. The best part, aside from its proven effectiveness, is that it is simple and inexpensive. Anyone can quickly learn the basics and use them effectively for their own health maintenance as well as to assist others with pain / health challenges.

Organic Templates of the Body
Most people understand the concept of foot reflexology where the shape of the foot can be seen to represent the whole body. Many have experienced pain relief and relaxation from foot reflexology massage. But not many Westerners realize that, according to Chinese traditional philosophy, many other body parts are also “templates” of the whole body: hands, eyes, ears, face, skull, arms, legs, etc.
To me this is not at all surprising when we consider that human reproduction starts from a tiny cell and egg meeting and a whole new unique human being grows from these tiny bits of life. Indeed, using modern technology, we can deduce the complete DNA information about the whole body from each cell of our body--and then of course there is the whole astonishing research into cloning which takes one tiny cell and reproduces an exact copy of a whole organic being, presumably including entire human beings.

The Ear is a Natural Organic Template of the Whole Body
The ear is a natural candidate to be this kind of organic template since it’s outer surface is not necessarily needed for other purposes than gathering and transmitting sounds into the inner ear sensory channels. Considering how almost every other part of the body has organic multipurpose functions: the combined manipulative / touch sensitive / temperature sensitive functions of hands (to name just a few); taste / digestive / speech / breathing functions of tongues, etc., etc., such an obvious and prominent feature as the ear would likely have more uses than the decorative piercing's (do the holes allow lifeforce to escape?); temperature sensing; embarrassment registering; or convenient handle for recalcitrant children (oops—not consistent with effective parenting, in my opinion) we put them to.
All levity aside, in my experience with auriculotherapy, the ear can be considered to be a highly sensitive, three-dimensional, interactive, organic, healing interface directly linked into the body’s natural, dynamic, automatic, self-regulating, regenerative system. Perhaps it’s been there all along and the only mystery is that we haven’t discovered this organic override to the body’s autonomically controlled pain-relief and healing system earlier.
Considering the West’s very recent introduction to the philosophy, practice and scientifically proven effectiveness of “acupuncture” as a whole, this would not be at all surprising. Also unsurprising is that we have a still very limited understanding of the holistic nature of the body’s capacity and capability for self-healing. This course is all about how we can empower ourselves to take responsibility and to become active in our own well being through educating ourselves about this venerable healing modality, amazing in its simplicity and effectiveness.
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