Kinesiology: one more thing to the mix

Maggie La Tourelle, in the photo above, is my Kinesiologist friend, and today I had a treatment from her, to complete the work we did last week.

She confirmed what Danny Williams had found osteopathically, that my C2 was out, causing problems for my vagus nerve, and that my pirformis muscles were tight on one side of my hip and loose on the other. The first thing Danny had noted about me was that I had tight feet - especially my right foot where my toes scrunched up as if permanently gripping something. But lo and behold, by the end of the session I looked down at my feet and my toes were not gripping. Not totally straight but definitely straighter! We had worked different muscles in the legs and hips, after extensive rounds of muscle testing to find which muscles and energy lines were switched off or overactive. Selecting each muscle individually, on the out breath I pushed against Maggie's body, and then noted the greater range of movement upon relaxation, especially in my hips. I felt a new tingling and heat in my body afterwards, and a better distribution of my weight between both sides . Impressive stuff.

Remembering to use light on yourself

On the night I got back from Guatemala I fell asleep on the sofa, and was startled out of a deep sleep by the phone ringing. On jumping up, still asleep, I knocked myself on the coffee table and fell on my right side as if in a feint. No bruising but it seemed to accentuate the problem I already had with my tight right hip. Since then, I have had problems weight bearing on my right leg after getting up from sitting for a while, and my leg gave way entirely when I burst into a run when I was late for an appointment! I narrowly missed falling on my face.

My mother developed late onset MS, and I have seen what happens when you lose your mobility, and what nursing homes for the elderly can be like, when you still have your mind but not your legs.

So if something is wrong I do get help. Since the fall, I have had Thai Yoga massage every three weeks, regular acupuncture from Dr Murphy, McTimoney chiropractic from a visiting friend, and two further sessions from another practitioner nearby, two osteopathic sessions with two different osteopaths, one of which was a fascinating Q1000 combo radionics and crystal session, an impromptu session in Spinal Touch with a Q1000 customer during a sale demo after too much tennis, and a kinesiology session with another friend. Whew! But I have not attempted CLRT on myself. Finding the points on myself is not something I am confident about which is ridiculous! Now writing this I realise that that is something I need to do, or at least focus on doing CLRT with a CLRT practitioner. Why wait til June and Dr Wise .......

Anyway, last week I went to another osteopath nearby highly recommended by Dr Murphy, who is also on the General Council of the British Osteopathic Association, Danny Williams. What is interesting is that that morning before the treatment I had got out my Q1000 and treated myself by doing the lymphatic points, and then holding one laser on each buttock. I immediately felt a pulsing on both points, something I had never before experienced. It was quite strong. During the treatment, without knowing what I had done earlier that morning, Danny Williams worked on my buttocks to free up what I presume was a trapped nerve from tight muscles.

So if I had known the problem came from my buttocks, partly, why did it take me so long to use the Q1000 on myself? I am not saying I could have sorted the problem myself, no way. I have learnt so much from all the amazing practitioners I have seen, and each one contributed to the ongoing journey of sorting whatever underlying mechanism is going on, physical and emotional. But there is a balance in all this between seeking outside help, and helping yourself with whatever tools you have to hand. And I do have tools. Now I make sure that when I wake up the lasers are there ready to use before I start my day, if the timing is right.

Interesting that since that first time last week, I have not had the pulsing again in my buttocks. But my weight bearing is better, and I no longer get burning down my leg after overdoing the tennis. Light is not taken up by tissues that don't need assistance, so it makes sense that the pulsing won't happen now things have shifted. I do remember working with Trond Bjornstad, a bioenergy healer, in the early days of using the Q1000. (See photo above) He identified a sore spot on my arm to shine the light on, and when he placed his hand nearby, off the body, with the Q1000 in place on that spot, I felt the same pulsing I felt in my buttocks. When the pulsing stopped he said that was an indication that I had enough light (photons).

So no matter how many double blind placebo controlled studies we demand before we believe, despite the theory, feeling something is a powerful way to flag up to the brain that something works. Except now I have talked and written about this experience I am beginning to wonder if it really happened! Who ever heard of throbbing buttocks, after all? Or do I lead a very sheltered life!

This blog has been seriously neglected! Call it hibernation, call it just going with the flow, and the flow did not involve the blog. So now with Spring bursting out I am re-energised and more focused, and wanting to communicate.

Now I am in the midst of organising another CLRT seminar for London and Scotland in June. The difference is that this time I have great feedback from those of you who now regularly use Cranial Laser Reflex Technique. So its not just how others in the US and the rest of the world use it, its how WE respond. It shouldn't matter but it does, when it comes to the differences between how we express ourselves.

So here is the experience of Surrey osteopath, Catrin Mear (Bsc Ost Hons), for those of you considering learning this new technique. When it comes to lasers, Dr Wise will be selling at the seminar relatively inexpensive single diode laser pens.

'I use CLRT during almost every treatment. From an osteopathic perspective, it can help me in preparing the tissues before doing an adjustment and it also useful for very acutely inflamed areas, where even gentle soft tissue work would be unbearable initially.

I find it really good for most areas of the spine. It seems to be effective for some muscle groups more than others but used correctly you can usually reduce muscular pain by about 50%. Using CLRT on the sacroiliac reflex points round the ears is amazing because it can instantly address a pelvic torsion and relieve a lot of pain around the sacroiliac joints. In the same way, it can be great for reducing pain and tension in the shoulder area particularly in the difficult to reach areas of the rotator cuff.

Interestingly it can be useful to test the diagnosis I have made from my osteopathic examination, in terms of whether the tender points on the head correlate with where I think the lesion is. I have obviously not done any evidence base research but it seems to correlate about 95% of the time. When it doesn’t it often encourages me to recheck and re-evaluate my hypothesis and search around for something else.

I see CRLT as another useful tool in my technique repertoire, which is very quick to use and easy to integrate with osteopathic practice. It often amazes the patients as well as me. I have only come across two patients who were not comfortable with it and as with any treatment technique who did not want it. One had had a bad experience with the medical profession, and another was worried that it would interfere with her hearing aid. Apart from that it is painless and there seem to be no side effects therefore most patients have been happy to experience it as part of their treatment.

Another of the major benefits of CLRT from the point of view of the practitioner’s body, is the saving of the hands as doing lots of soft tissue work can be hard on the hands. I also self treat with CLRT to keep things at bay until I get treatment from an osteopathic colleague.

It does feel a bit strange at first and I felt a bit detached because as an osteopath I am not very used to using a technological implement, however my palpatory skill as an osteopath is to my advantage as it allow me to quickly assess the tender reflex points and the required change in the area being treated. Also within minutes you have your hands free to be able to get back to your more typical osteopathic approach to treatment!'

Processing Emotions: The Mayan Way, and with Light

2010 - New Year's Eve was spent in a hotel room in Guatemala City, hoping to catch a standby ride on a plane to Miami early the next morning - thanks to my brother's job as a captain with American Airlines. Smelling the acrid smell of thousands of fireworks, but unable to see out of the fortress hotel, I reflected on the new awareness that travel brings to our daily lives, and how we are all connected in our guardianship of our planet. Leaving behind the busyness of the past few months with Light for Health, I went to Guatemala with my son, to revisit his time there as a volunteer in the indigenous Highland area of Quetzaltenango, or Xela, as it is popularly known.

Staying with the founder of INEPAS, the organisation he worked for, we spent Christmas Day leaving the city for the surrounding rural area, visiting a 19 year old girl whose last five years of education had been sponsored by Dario, a visiting Italian, who was also staying with us. Bumping along the dirt road, we passed many fields, houses and shacks in the wide open valley encircled by mountains. Every patch that could be cultivated was. Ingrid lived with her mother in one small room in a compound with other family members, and a room that housed the communal loom. She greeted Dario with a specially woven cloth with his name and the date, to thank him for his generous sponsorship enabling her to progress to become a bi-lingual (English) secretary. Then we were informed that the whole extended family, waiting outside all standing in an openbacked van, were taking us for a picnic to celebrate our visit. Christmas Day was their only day off.

Climbing higher to a wood overlooking the valley, we decamped near a large cross and an open patch of ground. Out of about fifteen people, including young children, the family only comprised two men. The rest, we were informed, were probably in the USA having gone there to find work.
A barbeque was set up and meat, probably lamb, was put over the charcoal, but not before we all joined hands in a circle and sang Happy Birthday to a very old looking woman in the group. It was her 69th birthday. She was less than nine years older than me, but half the height, and looking about ninety. After the singing, and the thanks to Dario, she went into the middle of the circle, knelt down and covered her head with a scarf. She started to wail and moan, talking Mayan. Her sister comforted her at one point, and then after about ten minutes she got up and rejoined the circle. Her misery, it was explained to us, stemmed from the fact that two family members had stolen from her, had been caught, forced to return the goods, and she had decided not to prosecute. This immediate and supported way of releasing emotion, found in many other traditional societies as well as in this Mayan one, was uninhibited and profoundly moving. For us Westerners, used to holding in, and covering up, it was a valuable lesson in how cell memory takes hold, affecting our health and wellbeing, unless we find effective ways to express and let go. The photo at the top of the blog was taken with me after her emotional release: she looks better for it!

Which brings me to light. At the end of Dr Wise's seminar in England, he pulled out of the hat one more gem. He had discovered by studying publicly available MRI scans, that men and women process emotions in different parts of the brain. Emotional release can be helped in women by shining a low level laser light half way between the outside tip of the right eyebrow, and the inside top edge of the ear. For men the same effect can be promoted by placing the light on the middle of the right eyebrow. A couple of weeks later half way through a Thai Yoga massage I got out my laser and used it on my emotional release point. My massage therapist felt an immediate shift in my energy, and a release in my problem area, my tight right hip! At the end of the session she used it on herself, and felt her feet root into the floor, grounding her after our session.

So, whilst some of us would find it hard to process emotions in the Mayan way, in a group of supportive family hearing and holding us at the time of the event needing to be expressed, there are other ways that access directly where we process emotion in the brain. Of course its better to combine light with therapies such as Emotional Freedom Technique and EMDR. It was exciting in a guest house on the shores of Lake Atitlan to meet a psychotherapist from Austin, Texas, who practiced EMDR, and who had not heard of Dr Wise's discoveries with light. He looked forward to further discoveries of brain processing, and no doubt to their combination with light!