Mark Lamm on Living Healthier

Mark Lamm, founder of the BioSync Research Institute, has spent 30 years studying a variety of movement techniques to develop the BioSync method—a somatic bodywork therapy designed to achieve pain relief, injury prevention and rehabilitation for a range of muscular and trauma-related physical conditions. In this interview, Lamm describes how unlocking your chi can be key to living a vibrant, healthy lifestyle.

What does it mean to live more healthfully?

It means that quality of life is high in terms of energy, enjoyment and activity—feeling light and comfortable in your body. Also, your physiology—your body is not only in alignment, but is well balanced.

What are the elements of a healthy lifestyle?

Everything comes down to self-consciousness: the awareness of what it is, how to achieve it and how to maintain it. The number-one essential in life is breath because without breath you cannot survive on the planet for more than five minutes. Then, of course, water. Water is essential; you cannot live more than five or six days without water. Finally, there’s food; without food you can live only 50 to 60 days.

If you live in a polluted environment, that will influence you faster and quicker than anything else. Just as if a person were smoking, that would instantly make a huge impact on health. We need to hydrate properly and drink water that’s not polluted or chlorinated. Ideally, you want to eat food that’s grown in a rich environment without pesticides or pollution of any kind. Another element of a healthy lifestyle is activity. If it’s not even in your consciousness that exercise is essential and that a poor diet does not give you life force, there’s going to be a lack of something. So, a healthy lifestyle is a total-awareness lifestyle.

If someone came to you for suggestions about how to start living healthier, what would you say?

The kind of work I do is hands-on bodywork called BioSync. Besides the obvious, it takes trauma out of the tissues. If someone comes in with a frozen shoulder, it cures that. But on an energy level, it erases dysfunctional patterns that are in the tissue. To explain that, you need to realize your body is a bio-computer. It starts with a single cell that has informational data. The patterns of function and dysfunction are in that microchip of data in the cell. Those patterns are primarily genetic, but they’re reinforced in this lifetime. The actual informational data is in the tissue itself, not in the brain. Whether the trauma is psychological, emotional, physical or mental, it doesn’t matter. The memory is in the tissue.

The erasure is done by using the life force itself, by using chi and erasing dysfunctional patterns. I can see the manifestation; the body is skewed. A person may not be standing up straight, but all of those are tissue-related and the memory in the tissue is what causes the tissue to be and act the way it does. The work I do unwinds those dysfunctional patterns.

What is the essence of chi?

It’s like trying to explain electricity or trying to put a leash on a cloud. Chi is a big part of acupuncture, and there’s also the martial-arts aspect where the chi is used as the dominant force. In cases of extreme emergencies, such as when a car rolls back on a child, a mother can get behind the car and pick it up to save the child, and that is a use of chi. When athletes are at their peak performance, it’s called being in a zone, but they’re really in a chi space. They have lost the knowledge of their bodies, so to speak, and they’re just using their bodies in a chi-functioning space.

Are there things that people can do to get more in touch with their chi?

In an article on the subject, I wrote that using chi is like having a bottle with a genie and a cork in it. Most people do not even know that they have the bottle, the genie and the cork. There has to be certain physicality within the body for the chi to flow, so people need to learn to use their chi. It’s like saying, “I am going to take you to the gym and show you the weights and the machines and expect you to know what to do.” We have a hard time generating chi for ourselves without some kind of instruction. In a seminar, it takes about three days on average for the participants to tap into and be able to use their chi.

When a new patient comes to you, do they participate in the process?

Yes, because it’s their desire to make a change. Before people come in, I have them write a wish list of what they want to feel like in their body and what they wish to experience. I have them put the list in their pocket; I never see it and I don’t want to see it. I’m only a facilitator of the change. But what happens is that all the blockages will appear and they will be erased. And I never know exactly what that is, but when I’m working with someone, I consider myself to be an extension of them. I’m in their system, telling them what to do.

Do you think BioSync is something everyone can do?

Absolutely! I think everyone on the planet, in an overall sense, needs this work. Some need it more than others, but everyone can receive it.

How long does the process take?

It’s such a unique and individual thing. Some people divest themselves of their patterns a lot quicker than other people. I think it has to do with their desire for change, freedom or health. The more desirous someone is, the quicker the change.

What results do you get with people who are dealing with serious health challenges?

Well, a quadriplegic I had worked with is now a paraplegic, and he has plenty of use of his upper body. It’s not a long-range rehabilitation or anything like that. Once you open up that blocked channel, the function is right there. It also has to do with the person’s vision and desire. The most important thing you can do is to get them to visualize themselves performing in a totally functional way: walking, running, whatever the case may be. If they can entertain that as a possibility, their body will go to that. I can facilitate change for them to become more and more functional. But I can’t mess with what their choices are in terms of how they perceive themselves and how long they’re going to remain stuck there.

So, the process starts first with the imagination?

I think it’s the consciousness itself. Imagination is key and is a bit like daydreaming. When you actually identify with that imagination and feeling, it is called disassociation. When you first start to visualize, you want to get into your body and see what it feels like. As you visualize, you’re sorting out pictures; when you actually create a picture that you wish to experience and feel, you have to step into that and make that you. When you make a wish list, it’s not only about making the list, but it’s also identifying what it would feel like to be that way. My job is to facilitate erasing of blockages that do not allow the new image to happen.

For more information on Mark Lamm, visit www.BioSync.com.