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Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Stress Relief – Week 1

Sorry I am blogging a day late, everyone. I was sick over the weekend and didn’t really get off the couch yesterday. I’ll detail my symptoms in next week’s blog.
Week 1 was exciting but exhausting. My son turned 2 so we had a birthday party and he started preschool. Instead of kissing him goodbye and walking out the door in the morning while he’s still in his pajamas, I now get him up and dressed and drop him off on my way to work. I decided to bike with him to school since he loves the bike and I’d love to be getting more exercise. The only problem is that my bike is old and really hard to ride and there’s a steady incline about half a mile into our 4-mile ride to school. And several times at this point in our ride, my son asked me to sing. But we rode to and from school every day last week. It was a nice change from the train but I was beat. There were many times when I felt I wasn’t so much applying pressure to points on my face as I was collapsing, face first, onto the tool I use.

By the way, I enjoy hearing what sort of tools everyone is using. I will get a picture of my “mushroom” on the blog ASAP.
I didn’t start right away with all four protocols in my plan of action. I started with “exhaustion, nervous” and “overwork.” Two days later I added “headaches” and “back problems.” My thinking was that I would hold off on the latter two since they are not things I encounter on a daily basis. But I soon added them thinking the cause of all four might be related.
I started my first session by stimulating my points making 3 turns in a counterclockwise direction. Many of the points in my plan of action felt really good (i.e., relaxing) when I applied pressure to them: especially point 126, point 342, point 103 & point 106 (I’m writing out the word “point” each time I make a reference thinking this will make it easier to search the blog down the line). Point 124 on the left (my left) side of my face was a little painful throughout the week. Some points felt awkward: point 1, point 43, point 45 and point 143. The awkward points, all falling near the bridge of the nose, felt difficult to find and difficult to apply consistent pressure to which made me wonder what exactly we are aiming for. If a point falls on a bone or a spot where the skin moves easily, how do we know if we are hitting the right spot? Are we aiming for the bone, a nerve, part of the skin?
There’s a chart in Marie-France’s book which describes the direction in which each point should be stimulated -- I started reading through the book a second time at the beginning of week 2 which is why I didn’t adhere to the chart during week 1 -- I don’t have the page number handy but will add it. I wonder if this chart might help address the issue of hitting awkward points since it allows you to approach from several directions and offers mobility. Thoughts?
Following my first session, I sat down at my desk to check my email. Something somewhat stressful came up and I noticed feeling slightly removed from it, like it was happening but not affecting me internally, not penetrating. I noticed this only the first time.
I had a pain in my shoulder on Saturday afternoon. I rubbed Tiger Balm on it before I had time to look up which point(s) correspond to the shoulder. The balm pretty much took care of the pain.
Goal for the week: familiarize myself more with the image of the frog on the face so that addressing new ailments doesn’t require the time it takes to get the book out and flip through it.

2 comments:

#reflexologyandyoga4balance said...

M, trust that by keeping up the bike rides with T, you'll be singing voluntarily very soon (lol). Sorry I did not have time to finalize this until now (Halloween...), unfortunately I can not do this kind of tasks on my blackberry (too bad) but you may have looked at the draft as I suggested.

On how to work (certain) points; you raised a justified question. The chapter to refer to is Chapter 5; point 1 is covered on p. 197 - you may know all this by now; Marie-France Muller goes into detail about the location of the points and how to work them; Point 1 on the nose IS interesting and she suggests to use a pen (and you are right, there are other points around the nose that are a bit tricky... when I am not sure about the exact spot I palpate with my index finger tip - using different angles -and just work the most sensitive spot in that immediate area or the entire area - worried about working a wrong point (contraindication - e.g. high/low blood pressure if applicable).. and/or felt off? No problem - just work Point O or better the entire zone-if I understood correctly, MFM states that a sensitive point close to a point is related to that point and thus it makes sense to work it... BN

MG said...

FYI...the chart I mentioned in my week 1 post is on pages 25 and 26 of Marie-France's book.

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