Mike Sententia is a skilled practitioner specializing in arthritis and chronic pain. He’s the author of “Arthritis: Natural Health and Prevention” and the founder of Healing Lab. His techniques are so reliable, all his sessions come with a money back guarantee. His mission is to end chronic pain with the modern science of energy healing. MysticMag finds out more.
What can you tell me about yourself and your professional journey?
Energy called to me very early on, and I started working with energy as a kid, just feeling it and exploring it. It was in my 20s that I really dove into healing work, practicing with friends who were willing to let me try to relieve their ailments. I trained in Reiki, Healing Touch, and some other techniques, but I mostly developed my own techniques through observation and practice. I was lucky to have a close friend who was a nurse — she was instrumental in helping me get really specific in matching the energy I was reading to different tissues throughout the body.
I started seeing some really impressive results by my 30s. A friend with chronic hives recovered after three sessions, a friend with chronic insomnia went from sleeping three to four hours a night to six or seven hours a night. Enough friends were telling me that this was really helping them and encouraging me to share this with people, that I decided to start my own healing practice in 2015 with Healing Lab.
Initially, I felt a lot of resistance to starting my own practice. I’m a skeptic and my background is in science, so I felt unsure that the results I was producing were actually from my work with energy.
To gain confidence, I explored the research on energy healing. I expected to find a few case studies, but was really surprised by the amount of high-quality controlled trials, studies on plants and animals, studies on cell cultures, and even studies on inanimate matter that were out there. Stephen Schwartz and William Tyler, for example, have published some really compelling research on energy healing on water. This all helped me get past my doubts and start Healing Lab.
I initially felt drawn towards doing research and publishing studies, but as I talked with researchers, especially Melinda Connor, I learned that what the world needed wasn’t another researcher chasing a tiny pot of funding. It needed an industry partner to help fund and drive the research. That’s what Healing Lab became. Our mission is to end chronic pain with the modern science of energy healing, and the plan is to partner with researchers to understand energy and make it mainstream and covered by insurance.
One of the biggest pivots in my work was when I decided to specialize in arthritis. When I first started doing healing sessions, I was marketing for everything I’d ever had results with — pain, hives, autoimmune conditions, insomnia, anxiety — everything.
Then a client named Diane came in with severe hip arthritis. Every step was an 8 out of 10 on the pain scale, and you could see it in her face as she winced with each move.
By the end of her first session, her pain had dropped from an 8 to a 4, and she was taking normal-sized steps back to her car. After three months of working together, she was able to walk a mile. By 12 months, she was walking 3 to 4 miles daily and could bend over to tie her shoes for the first time in years!
My experience with Diane, witnessing the impact my work could have for people with arthritis and chronic pain, made me realize the under-served nature of this population. People under 60 often struggle to receive the necessary surgery, and painkillers are often ineffective or make it difficult to function. This experience led me to specialize in arthritis and expand into chronic pain. Over the years, I’ve found this work to be tremendously fulfilling, and I feel really honored to be able to help so many people.
What Energy Healing techniques do you use?
I’ve trained in Healing Touch, Reiki, and other modalities, but for the most part, my techniques were developed through personal observation and practice with close friends. Blind testing has also been instrumental in ensuring that I was actually moving energy and that the techniques were prompting real results.
Here’s how energy healing works, from my perspective. Living cells produce this energy, called Chi or Prana in the East. Here we typically just call it “energy.” Different types of cells and different cell states produce different energy signatures. Inflamed cells produce inflamed chi, healthy cells produce healthy chi, and arthritic cells produce arthritic chi. By adjusting the energy around the cells, we can influence them over time to promote health and healing.
For example, when I’m working with arthritis, each tissue that’s involved (the bursa, tendons, cartilage, and nerves) gets a different type of healing energy.
With osteoarthritis, my goal is to get the cartilage to start growing healthy tissue again, so I’ll send energy based on the energy of a child’s cartilage. Over the course of 9 to 12 months, many clients have reported increases in mobility and range of motion, which suggests an improvement to the cartilage.
With the bursa and tendons, I’ll typically focus on suppressing the inflamed chi.
Another key area is the nerves. When nerves signal pain over and over, they learn to signal pain better and better. That’s what chronic pain is, it has a unique physiology and energy signature. For nerves with chronic pain, I align precisely with that unique signature and suppress it. And while individual results vary of course, many clients have reported a 4-point drop in pain in a matter of minutes when I do that.
Can you walk us through one of your sessions?
I do both in-person and distance healing sessions.
For in-person sessions, our office doesn’t have any steps or ramps to make it easier for people with hip or knee arthritis. Our clients will first go through our intake process, where I’ll learn more about their experience. They’ll then lie down on the massage table and, with their permission, I’ll lightly place two fingers on the joints that are bothering them to read the energy of each tissue.
After that, I discuss my findings with them, ask about their experience, and we discuss my recommendations. When they’re ready, I’ll again place two fingers to the joint to adjust the energy around those areas.
At the end of the session, I’ll ask them to stand up and test out their joints. They might take a few steps or do a gentle squat to see how they’re feeling.
If they aren’t feeling better, I’ll ask them to lie back down so I can re-adjust the energy. I’ll then ask them to test it out again — my goal is to make sure that by the time they leave the room, they’re feeling the results they were looking for.
What else do your holistic packages include?
I do energy healing, both in person and distance. We also have a nutritionist, Alyssa Broadwater, she’s a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in nutrition. I interviewed 20 or 30 nutritionists because I wanted to get one who really understood the science. I wanted to know that she understood all the mechanisms of action, so I would feel really confident that everything she told my clients was based on solid science, not something she read in a blog post somewhere. She’s great.
Our holistic package also includes evidence-based supplements to support anti-inflammation, including omega 3s, vitamin K, turmeric, and collagen.
How do you measure success and can you share some success stories?
One of the things I love about having a 100% money-back guarantee is that my clients measure success for me. They only pay if they love the results and want to come back. Most of my clients are looking for a drop in pain when they come in, so my main goal is always to bring their pain down.
I already mentioned Diane earlier, but another recent client I want to bring up is Anthony.
Anthony had been living with shoulder arthritis for close to 10 years, with his pain at an 8 out of 10 most days. He used to do martial arts and yoga but had to give those up because of his pain. After the first session, his pain fell from an 8 to a 7. The second session, it was down to a 6. Fourth session it dropped to a 5. It kept going down by half a point to a point each session.
By the end of the year with me, he was doing yoga again. He made huge gains in his range of motion and is now able to lift his arm over his head and move his arm more quickly and easily, and of course, his pain was way down.
It’s so exciting and fulfilling to help people get back to hiking, dancing, yoga, and other activities they love.
To learn more or book a free consultation, visit healinglab.org
