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Keeping In Touch...
To Our Clients, From Your Partners In Bodywork
HERE IS A LINK TO OUR NOVEMBER 2006 NEWSLETTER
HERE IS A LINK TO OUR JUNE 2007 NEWSLETTER
NOVEMBER 2007
WHAT IS HEALING, REALLY? WHAT IS HEALING IN THE CONTEXT OF A MASSAGE THERAPY SESSION? KIDNEY TALK
What is Healing, Really? Recently, we've been asking ourselves, “What is healing, really? And how can we help facilitate it for our clients?” We consulted multiple authors who have been involved with healing in a traditional healthcare setting and others who use alternative methods of healing. While we didn't think it would be easy to provide
a clear and concise answer, we at least thought it would be possible to come up with some general statements about healing.Well, it turned out to be far more difficult than we anticipated. We humans are very complex creatures. We are made up of a physical component as well as emotional, mental and spiritual components. Much has been written about what makes up each component and how they interact.
Healing is different from curing. Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, in Healing and the Mind by Bill Moyers, says, “Healing is a process we're all involved in all the time. It's very close to the process of education. Educare, the root of 'education,' means 'leading forth, wholeness, or integrity.' Healing is also the leading forth of wholeness in people. Sometimes people heal physically, and they don't heal emotionally, or mentally, or spiritually. And sometimes people heal emotionally, and they don't heal physically.”
Research has shown that loving and being loved play a large part in healing. Other factors include peace of mind, hope, belief in a higher power and being 'true' to who you really are. In this article we will focus on the effect of love on healing.
The physiology of healing appears to involve the heart. A study by Drs. Gary Schwartz and Linda Russek of the University of Arizona suggests that resonance occurs between people at all times and love may facilitate it. In a forty-two-year follow-up of a famous study of Harvard graduates and their ability to handle stress, Drs. Russek and Schwartz hooked up the subjects and Russek to equipment that recorded their brain waves (EEGs) and heart frequencies (ECGs). The men who, when they were in college forty-two years earlier, felt their parents were loving (only 25 percent) resonated to Russek's heart beat more quickly and more strongly than those who did not. Those same men who had described their parents as loving were far more likely to be healthy in middle age then those who rated their parents as not very loving.
Rollin McCraty, director of research at the Institute of HeartMath, a nonprofit research organization in Boulder Creek, CA, and William Tiller, Ph.D., a professor of material science at Stanford University, found that as people focused on feelings of appreciation and love, heart rate variability (a measure of the beat-to-beat fluctuations in rhythm) became ordered and coherent – a perfect sine wave. In some cases the breathing rate, blood pressure, and brain waves also synchronized with the heart, creating a state of entrainment. The systems then worked at maximum efficiency. Their findings were published in the American Journal of Cardiology and Alternative Therapies.
In a follow-up study, reported in the Journal of Advancement in Medicine, McCraty and Tiller found that subjects who focused on appreciation and love for just five minutes increased levels of Secretory IgA, a component of the immune system, for six hours. Conversely, a five-minute session in which individuals focused on anger, which created more chaotic heart vibrations, inhibited production of Secretory IgA for one to five hours.
According to Dr. Bernie S. Siegel, author of Love, Medicine & Miracles, the fundamental problem most people face is an inability to love themselves, having been unloved by others during some crucial part of their lives. The ability to love oneself, combined with the ability to love life, fully accepting that it won't last forever, enables one to improve the quality of life. One's attitude toward oneself is the single most important factor in healing or staying well. Those who are at peace with themselves and their immediate surroundings have far fewer serious illnesses than those who are not.
Meditation is one of the best ways to find inner peace. In addition, there are many simple ways to begin to care for and love yourself; for example, give yourself a big hug each morning or look in the mirror and tell yourself out loud that you are complete and whole just as you are. Harvard psychologists David McClelland and Carol Kirshnit found that even movies about love increase levels of immunoglobulin-A in the saliva, the first line of defense against colds and other viral diseases. With this in mind, curling up in front of a good romantic movie could potentially protect you from colds and flu this winter.
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What is Healing in the Context of a Massage Therapy Session? As massage therapists, we frequently ask ourselves how we can help our clients heal. We know now that healing has multiple components, not all of them physical. But we obviously do aim to help you feel physically better. Loving, informed touch combined with anatomical and technical knowledge can go a long way to easing someone's pain. As for the non-physical components, our current conclusion is one based on meditation – that our role is to stay clear and centered in the present moment with our clients. The more open and “on the dot” we are, the better we can hear what your tissues may be saying, and the better we can encourage YOUR innate healing energy to rise to the surface.You may notice that we often start and end your sessions with a few moments of silence as our hands rest on your body. What we are doing during those moments is centering ourselves and asking for the universal energy to support the session as we seek the highest good for our client. We have noticed that since we have been asking for clearness in this way, more healing energy “wakes up” and starts percolating through your systems.
We named our practice “Partners in Bodywork” not only because the massage therapists are business partners, but also because we believe that therapists and clients alike are all partners in the healing process. It is our job, and our sincere pleasure, to join with you in listening carefully to the deepest wisdom your tissues, your heart, your other organs, your brain, and your energy body may wish to share. We are honored to share this journey with you.
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Kidney Talk In our last newsletter we wrote about learning the language of our livers. Now let’s try to becomeviscerally bilingual and decipher what our kidneys are saying.
First, some kidney basics: almost all of us have two kidneys, situated on the left and right, just in front of our back lower ribs. They are shaped like kidney beans (no surprise there!), with long ureter tubes coming out from their medial sides and descending to the bladder. The adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys like little skullcaps. The left kidney shares venous and lymphatic circulation with the genital system, so any genital infection will negatively impact the left kidney as well. The right kidney is tucked under the liver and is impacted more by the digestive system.
If the liver is over-stressed, the right kidney will suffer also.Functionally, our kidneys are best known for filtering blood to produce urine. They also maintain the equilibrium of water in the body, control blood volume and arterial pressure, and transform proteins into urea and uric acid. They even help produce some hormones, including prostaglandine, which has an effect on the uterus, the digestive system, and the bronchii. The next time you come in for a session and tell us you’ve been coughing a lot, don’t be surprised if we check your kidneys!
Here are some other symptoms you might report to us that would cause us to check your kidneys: deep fatigue, swelling under your skin and in your feet and legs, sensitive eyes, back pain that’s worse when you lie down and that diminishes throughout the day, a feeling of pins and needles in your feet when you get up, or strong smelling urine.
There is also a common kidney issue that is easy to work with but seldom diagnosed. It’s called renal ptosis, which means one or both kidneys have lost their moorings in the abdomen and have slid lower, along the psoas muscle. The kidneys do not have strong attachments to the abdominal wall, and occurrences such as a fall on the tailbone, rapid weight loss, childbirth, or a chronic cough can jar them loose. A ptosis does not necessarily lead to kidney problems, but it can cause a decrease in function and increase the risk of kidney stone formation. Therefore, it’s best to have us check your kidneys and optimize their lymphatic drainage and visceral motility if you’ve had any of these occurrences.
Just like liver language, there are emotional patterns that are typical of kidney talk. The kidneys are a source of deep energy reserves for dealing with large emotional and physical issues. If you feel profoundly fatigued, you should have us check your kidneys (and liver). The kidneys also process fear, both deep-seated and momentary. A person who feels insecure and wishes to compensate by overcoming odds, overachieving, and meeting difficult challenges might be dominated by kidney energy. We might be able to sedate your overactive kidney energy with one of our energy medicine techniques.
Everyone has these patterns to a greater or lesser extent. The point of learning the language of each organ is to be less confused and frightened by a constellation of symptoms, which may not seem to have anything to do with each other. Imagine waking up one day with pins and needles in your feet, eyes that feel sensitive, and an inexplicable fearful feeling. It’s reassuring to know that those signs are all related, and there are several things you can do to give your kidneys some extra TLC: avoid sitting for too long; temporarily cut back on protein intake, especially in the evenings; minimize intake of salt; minimize anti-inflammatory use; drink tepid liquids rather than anything too hot or too cold; and drink grapefruit juice daily. Also, it is always a good idea to drink small quantities of liquids often, rather than large quantities at one time. Too much fluid at one time is tiring to the kidneys.
The kidneys are very responsive to a healing touch. Time and again in our practice we have found that working with the kidneys is deeply soothing and relaxing. As with any organ, learning to speak and appreciate the language of the kidneys is well worth the effort.
