Derek Peach has been on quite a journey from a suited cynic to an energy healer. He is a 200 -hour RYT, a Vibrational Fascia Release Technician and Biofield Tuning Practitioner. We know what the first one is, but the other two you may not be so familiar with. YogaLondon gets chatting to find out all about his journey to alternative healing.
1. What was your journey to becoming a holistic wellness practitioner?
My first career was as a chartered accountant working in finance. It was a highly stressful job working with the trading teams as an internal check and balance, assessing the potential risk/reward outcome of anything they proposed. The traders were, as you would expect, big egos, with big characters, so I wasn’t always popular when telling them that they couldn’t take on a venture because it was too high risk.
It was exciting, terrifying and stimulating, but it wasn’t great in terms of stress levels. Due to the nature of the job I wasn’t sleeping well, I was heavy and was eating and drinking unhealthily. I wasn’t looking after my body, mind, or soul, but the job paid well.
Then it got to the point where I hadn’t slept for three days, and I got a wake-up call. I had been very cynical, and this insight was to change my life.
2. How did this big epiphany happen?
It sounds pretty funky! Twelve years ago, when I was around 40 years old, I was walking along the Southbank from London Bridge where I worked to Waterloo to get the train. I began to become aware of wave after wave of energy hitting my chest and going through me in concentric waves. I turned around the corner and saw a group of people meditating on the planet and our climate, and the energy was coming off this group.
I sat down with them in my suit and meditated with them. I’d never done anything like that before. But I shut my eyes and could feel each of them. I couldn’t rationalise it and it was totally overwhelming. Some people are very sceptical about it, but my previous life views crumbled and collapsed completely in that moment.
3. Did this lead you to yoga?
Yes. I had no emotional connection to myself. I was lost as a human. A friend asked if I wanted to come to a yoga class with him and I laughed and said it was something for old ladies. He said ‘Ok, but I think it’ll be too tough for you.’ So I went along and sure enough, by the end of the class (a Vinyasa flow class) I couldn’t get off the mat – but I felt phenomenal. I ended up going back the next day, and the day after that, and after six months I was going five times a week – I’m an all-or-nothing kind of guy…
4. How did yoga change your life?
Yoga brought me huge benefits. I was completely in my head and wasn’t aware of anything much below the chin. My body changed, I lost weight and found myself. Looking back I was in a dark hole, and yoga was the ladder that dropped down to me, which allowed me to climb out of that hole.
5. How did you go from yoga devotee to Biofield Tuning Practitioner?
I happened to be in LA for work when an old acquaintance who I’d not been in touch with for twenty years posted on Facebook about a Subtle Energy Conference in San Diego (near to LA). I didn’t know what subtle energy was, but it seemed like the universe had presented this as an opportunity, so I went.
When I got there I met some very interesting people including a woman called Eileen McKusick, who had developed a technique that she then called sound balancing, now known as Biofield Tuning. It made a lot of sense to me, and we discussed her teaching it, which led to me being part of the first formal class she taught the technique to.
As I worked with my clients I realised that we need to address mind, body, and soul more holistically, so I started introducing lots of the yoga practices that I had learnt into the physical and energetic therapies and that is how the combination therapy I now use in the Vibrant Health Clinic was born.
6. Explain a bit more about how Biofield Tuning and Vibrational Fascia Release work?
Biofield tuning is a way of tapping into the electromagnetic field generated by the human body, otherwise known as your aura. This electromagnetic field or energy field has a frequency that can be tapped into using a tuning fork. If you transmit a different frequency into a blocked energy field, you can make a state change and clear any blockage.
This energy field is related to the chakra system in the yogic system and Chi gong and Tai Chi – it’s about smoothing out the flow of the energy.
Biofield tuning is usually done onto the body but can also be done at a distance to the person being healed using a higher frequency tuning fork. Whereas Vibrational Fascia release works with a weighted tuning fork with a lower frequency and that is applied directly to the body to reduce inflammation and pain typically caused by issues with the fascia.
7. Why is the fascia so important in healing?
Modern medicine is only about 15 years into trying to understand the significance and importance of the fascia. Before that, they used to pull all the fascia off the body before showing medical students the anatomy of the body.
Now they think that the fascia is crucial in terms of electrical communication between the brain and the rest of the body. It is also a support structure that maintains the body in both sitting and standing positions.
When we’re sitting down for long periods the fascia hardens into whatever position we’re in, and the interlocking fibres of the fascia lock and start to press down on the nerves below. This is where VFR comes in. The weighted tuning fork resonates with the fascia fibres and releases them back to their more open position.
8. Have you met with scepticism since your wake-up call?
I’ve met with some resistance from family and friends. When I first started getting into yoga and the other therapies my friends and family thought I was having a mid-life crisis. Now many of them ask me for sessions using the combination therapy approach that I have evolved as they experience the benefits of the work.
In fact, a lot of what I have learnt has been through helping them with their myriad health challenges.
9. You’re a registered yoga teacher, do you still teach?
When I first qualified as a yoga teacher I did a fair amount of teaching in studios while I was still working, but I found it rather dispiriting. Yoga teachers can get very poorly paid – depending on the studio – and I found the politics in some yoga studios challenging.
I now teach my own classes, mainly private one-to-ones as part of the tailored healing techniques that I offer.
10. Do you still work in finance?
No, in 2019 I gave up my job, and it was going really well until the pandemic hit. In February 2020 I had my record week in terms of clients, and then by March that had been totally wiped out by the first lockdown.
It went up and down from lockdown to lockdown, and with the variety of confusing regulations. Now people are still fearful to be in a closed room with others, so I’ve had to diversify to bring in sufficient income. But I’m not going back to the corporate world.
11. Do you think there’s an element of faith in what you do?
What I have now is different from how I imagined faith as a child. At the beginning of this journey, my understanding was less evolved, now I have a sense of knowing and acceptance based on my experiences.
It’s not so much faith, as a deep sense of knowing. I don’t know how I know, I just do, it’s unconscious. And it’s also come through ten years of intense practice. I can look at someone online and know what’s wrong with them, and then improve their condition. It’s just about diverting energy. Plus I think it’s going to work, even if the person I’m working on is a complete cynic.
12. What are your three top tips for having a vibrant energy field?
My first tip is to reduce stress in your life. Stress is super-depleting and has a disproportionate effect on your energy field. Getting enough sleep is also important and difficulty sleeping can be a symptom of high stress levels.
My next tip is clean eating and drinking, as well as avoiding low-quality food and drink. What you put inside you will have a direct impact on your energy. When I say clean I mean organic and freshly sourced.
My last tip is radical self-care. This is the biggest charger of your energy field. The more you take steps to look after yourself the more energy you’ll have. This can be as diverse as forgiving yourself or others, taking a break from self-criticism, or moving and exercising.
Just as we can get into a vicious cycle of behaviour, we can also get into a virtuous cycle.
