Can You Feel the Chi? (Cool, 'Cause I Can't..)

I got a lot of wonderful responses to my last blog post (most of which, regrettably, appeared in my inbox or on my Facebook page.)

But the most challenging and thought-provoking comment came through the blog itself, from a friend I made online about a year or so ago... one who was only then just thinking about a career as a massage therapist, and is now facing a challenge that I remember facing (and actually, still do on occasion).

I had to request a little clarity on one of her statements, but while I am still waiting for her response, I will offer a brief anecdote of my own.

I'm pretty sure I've said it here before, that I've never considered myself a highly intuitive type. When I started shiatsu school, I had the impression that it was just about pressing various specific places on people which the intention of having some kind of effect, and it was all just a matter of learning where. The idea that shiatsu was working with 'chi' and therefore, some type of unquantifiable force, didn't occur to me to possibly being a challenge.

Several weeks into the first level, when people in my class were raving about 'feeing energy', and 'pulses' and 'seeing colors' and all manner of esoteric whatever, I was thinking these folks are either completely full of shit, or I'm totally dense. I worried that I was never going to get this, I was never going to have that sensitivity, and maybe I was really in the wrong field. (I should note, that like Jessica, my commentor, I started with Reiki, but shall address that in a later post.)

I limped along, learning the meridians and the points, making like I was perfectly aware of what chi felt like, that I could totally feel the 'echo' between my 'mother and child hands', and I would spend countless hours  going cross-eyed as I fruitlessly tried to visualize the aura of my teachers up against the chalkboard.

I maintained this story to myself, about my energetic obliviousness, throughout the second level of shiatsu school, until I finally realized I had to at least start telling myself a different story. One that included the possibility that I'm not incapable of getting this stuff, I just haven't yet. And that it probably wasn't going to appear like a billboard with big blinking lights and arrows and a singing telegram, announcing, 'Yes, girl! You got it!'

That was a good first step.

The Visible Man

I'm revisiting a book I started to read a couple years ago, "Eastern Body, Western Mind" by Anodea Judith (aff. link).

It's a lovely explanation of the chakra system from a western psychology perspective. So much information and levels of understanding, and like most books I pick up, a particular wording or phrase will jump out at me and fit an image I've been trying to articulate.

Like this one: "..the body cloaks the invisible soul and reveals its shape and expression."

In and of itself it has little to do with the chakras, but, for me, it speaks volumes on how the body/mind connection is revealed in our forms, as well as giving a perfect illustration of the visibility and nature of chi flow.

The physical body can be seen as a vehicle for our souls, but it is also the densest manifestation of all the energy we are comprised of, and the clearest expression of our energetic make-up.

Opposite of how a container will define the form of whatever liquid is inside, our energy patterns define the shape of our containers.

Judith's statement called to my mind an image of The Invisible Man... transparent and undetectable.. but now, throw a sheet over him. Or even better, spray-paint him. We can now see his posture and features, facial expressions, details. But we know that the spray paint itself, like the physical body, is not 'him', it's simply revealing the state of his energetic formation.

And like the Invisible Man, we are energy contained in a physical structure that takes on the state of how that energy flows, beginning with conception, and to a large degree, conforming to our thought patterns, our emotions, our view of ourselves and the world as we grow older.

The corollary to this is that the energetic system can be affected in turn by actions we take to the physical body.

Some of our energetic expressions are permanent. But our physical bodies have a degree of plasticity as well, and can be molded and reformed with bodywork, yoga, and other work that creates shifts in our emotional and psychological states.

And in Judith's book, she recommends a number of individual approaches for healing each chakra that will not only balance the energy system overall, but positively affect how that energy ripples out through the physical form.

Wood v Earth

After writing that last post concerning Liver chi flow and transitions, I realized that I should clarify something.

I talked about the associations between Liver chi, Wood energy and Spring, and how well one deals with birthing-type transitions may depend on the ease of this chi flow.

Well. Just to digress for a moment, we need to visit the Earth element, which governs the Stomach/Spleen meridians. The season associated with the Earth element is "late summer"... that interesting no-longer-summer-but-not-quite-fall period in the northern hemisphere, around September/October.

However, it is also said to align with the transition time between all the seasons... you know those 'indicator days', like an unseasonably warm or cold spell? Agitation or unease during these shifts can be indicative of imbalance in our Earth element.

Both are about navigating transition, so what's the diff here?

The Earth element has to do with our inner sense of stability and groundedness, and our relationship to the 'earth', whatever that may be for us. Large shifts or transitions, like in seasons, or life circumstances or relationships can feel like the ground giving way beneath our feet. When what we've come to take for granted as real, stable and permanent decides to take a different form, we may experience a scary feeling of groundlessness, especially if we're not sure where we're going to land. (I've never really experienced an earthquake, but I imagine it's something like that.)

So, the Earth element is about our inner stability with and relationship to ever-shifting external circumstances: rootedness. The Wood element governs the ease with which we channel internal powerful growth energy: flow.

Feel the difference?

If you're feeling some vague discomfort during this time of seasonal transition, take a moment to see how you feel. Is it something like impatience, irritability, or frustration? Or more like melancholy, worry, or off-centeredness?

Like this post? You might also enjoy: Five Elements: An Intro

Breath of Life

The other day I had my first experience with Ayurveda, the Indian system of medicine which claims to be the oldest in the world. The practitioner, a lovely woman named Alpa, who is also part of the holistic center that I work from, explained to me that Ayurveda means "knowledge of self", or "knowledge of life". She asked me what I knew to be the essentials for 'living the life', and waited for my responses with a sheet of paper in her hand, marked with numbers 1 through 4.

She listed the things I recited, such as healthy food, exercise, inward reflection... none of which she jotted down in the number one spot. What was I missing?

And why was what should have been the most obvious thing, especially as a bodyworker, eluding me?

I guess it was no surprise -- considering that the issue I brought to her was about support for my Lung meridian (which I intuited my primary challenge to be) -- that I was totally blanking on oxygen. We can go for some time without food, even longer without exercise, and go our entire lives without meditation, but we wouldn't last longer than a few minutes without air. Duh.

Alpa then took me through pulse palpation and a brief marma point massage (similar to acupressure or shiatsu points), accompanied by deep breathing exercises. "Breathe! Breathe! More, more, more! Now let it go..." she kept admonishing me, until I thought I might pass out. I didn't, of course, but I was profoundly aware, upon sitting up, of fully inhabiting my upper body for the first time in a while. It was amazing.

She then revealed to me that, during the shiatsu treatment I had given her a few days ago, she noticed that I hadn't been fully breathing. Me?!? Ahem. Ah, Gina, remember Shiatsu 101? Before all else, breathe.

But this is something we all forget. Sure, we breathe enough to survive, but for many of us, only just so. How much of our aches and pains, mental fuzziness, fatigue, anxieties, lowered immunity, digestive issues, and depression are a result of just not breathing properly?

And I was obviously becoming aware of this in myself. I had been noticing periods of breathlessness, upper body weakness, weird and vague flu symptoms that would come and go as soon as the air got drier, and periods of inexplicable sadness. In shiatsu, the Lungs are responsible for intake of chi (or ki, in Japanese), and for dispersing it downwards and outwards.. therefore governing the ki of the whole body. Fatigue or lack of vitality can be due to a Lung imbalance.

From a psychological perspective, and taken from the book, Shiatsu: Theory and Practice by Carola Beresford-Cooke: "When our Metal energy [Lungs and Large Intestine are associated with Metal] is healthy, we feel that we are individuals in a situation of exchange with the universe. Not only do we feel our own value, but we know instictively that we are connected to everything of value outside our own boundaries... Quality, worth, whatever we most prize, is "in here" in abundance as well as "out there" and we are secure in our ability to connect with it.

If. on the other hand, our Metal is out of balance, no such security exists. Perhaps we reinforce our boundaries in order to clamp down on what little we feel we have and to avoid further loss ... Or we may seek outside our own boundaries for an ideal perfection which we constantly pursue because of our own intrinsic sense of emptiness and a lack of worth."

How many of us does this describe, I wonder? Referring back to this earlier post, and observing our postural tendencies as a whole, I think we can safely assume that re-learning to breathe would be useful lesson for all of us.

Alpa reminds me that breath, prana, is life.

"And what happens when you don't breathe?" she asks me. "You die?" I offer, my face smushed in the cradle of her table. "That's right..."

She has assured me that after practicing these exercises for thirty days, I will notice a difference. I'll be sure to let you know how it goes, and be back to revisit this topic.

Chi Self-Massage

Master Mantak Chia (cha-cha-chia... sorry, a little humor there) in his book, Chi Self- Massage, The Taoist Way of Rejuvenation, shares an ancient method by which Taoist Masters were able to maintain their youthful appearance and healthy organ function well into old age.

Unlike traditional Western massage, which focuses on the muscles, chi massage employs one's own internal energy to strengthen and rejuvenate the sense organs (which Chia says can help to control negative emotions), and the inner organs (which can help to change emotional and personal characteristics).

This book illustrates yet another example of how by addressing the physical body, we can bring about positive emotional and psychological shifts. Master Chia walks the reader through various techniques of self-massage, breathing, visualization, and even smiling ... refining them into a daily practice, which, as he writes, will allow you to ".. enjoy feeling, looking, and functioning as a happier, calmer, more vital and attractive person."

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